Friday, November 04, 2005

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.


Apparently, progress is really progressing over in Iraq. Back in 2004, there was this:

The U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, acknowledged Friday that mistakes had been made in the occupation of the country and invited former Iraqi army officers who served under ousted president Saddam Hussein to help establish a new national force.

And given how well that turned out, we now have this:

The Iraqi government called today for the return of junior officers from the disbanded army of Saddam Hussein, openly reversing a controversial American directive issued in 2003...

The move represents the most public departure yet from an American policy instituted by L. Paul Bremer III, the former head of the American occupation, that was intended to cleanse the Iraqi government and security forces of former members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party and to disband the Iraqi Army.

Many American commanders and military analysts have said that the dissolution of the 400,000-strong Iraqi Army drove many thousands of Sunni Arab soldiers and officers into the insurgency while depriving the country of a force that could help restore order. American and Iraqi officials now say that a core part of the Sunni-led insurgency is made up of former members of Mr. Hussein's military.

So ... it took 2,000+ deaths and many more maimed and wounded to get ... closer and closer to where you started from. I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of the plan.

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