Then and now, U.S. shows little understanding of Iraq

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USA Today

The face of American rule in Iraq during the year after the U.S. invasion was L. Paul Bremer - a veteran diplomat with trademark Brooks Brothers suits, desert combat boots and rarely a hair out of place. On Tuesday, Bremer was summoned to Capitol Hill for a hostile and overdue grilling, part of the Democrats' promised broad oversight of U.S. involvement in Iraq that was largely missing when Republicans controlled Congress.

Though President Bush has heaped praise and the Medal of Freedom on Bremer, his actions from May 2003 to June 2004 were at best questionable and at worst disastrous.

In one of his first major steps, Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army, leaving tens of thousands of young men angry, unpaid and ready for insurrection. He also barred Baath Party members from responsible jobs, needlessly alienating thousands of smart people who could have helped put the country back together again.

Tuesday's hearings focused on the mind-boggling amounts of money Bremer dispersed. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who led the session, said he wanted to know what happened to $12 billion, much of it in tons of bills flown in on C-130 cargo planes. Stewart Bowen, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction who also testified, was scathing about lax accounting.

Though Bremer admitted mistakes Tuesday, he said he did his best in difficult conditions. He said he confronted unexpected chaos, looting and a broken banking system. While that's an unsatisfying explanation, it would be a mistake to turn him into a sole scapegoat, considering that most of his key decisions were approved by his bosses at the Pentagon.

The more fundamental problem is that the choice of Bremer reflected the naive arrogance of the administration that sent him. Whether the right man could have prevented Iraq's descent into chaos is unknowable, but Bremer wasn't that man. He had almost no experience in the Middle East. He did not understand the ways in which Iraqi society functioned - and which predicted how Iraqis would react to the U.S. invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The question now is whether the United States has learned the lessons of the Bremer mistake. One encouraging indication was the choice of Zalmay Khalilzad - who is steeped in the region's language, culture and history - to serve, until recently, as U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

But the Iraq Study Group reported in December that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has few Arabic speakers. And Bush's last-ditch troop surge to Iraq involves sending U.S. soldiers to patrol Baghdad, getting to know Iraqis and to make them feel safe. When the British tried that in the southern city of Basra, success crumbled to tribal allegiances impenetrable to outsiders. Iraqis openly say that after four years of horror, they are divided and mistrustful of Americans.

Life, the saying goes, can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards. Putting Bremer in the hot seat is only worthwhile if the right lessons are learned.