Yeah, the special units like the Republican Guard would have had to go. I believe the Iraqi Army was around 300,000 or so at the time it was disbanded. Even 50,000 Iraqi troops would have helped immensely in the days after major military operations were over in Iraq. Those troops would have gone a long way as to the prevention of the looting that went on. Not to mention putting an Iraqi face on the security in Iraq.

Plus nothing worse than fired soldiers in adding to the number of trouble makers.

The borders were not cut off as well as they should have been, nothing more, nothing less. Zarqawi's aid comes through damascus, Sadr's through Tehran.

I think the governing authority should have banned civilians from owning weapons long ago. Here is a piece from the USMC's Small Wars Manual that explains why.

"If it has not been done previously by the intervening forces,
the disarming of the people should be initiated upon the formal
declaration of military government, and must be regarded as the
most vital step in the restoration of tranquility. The disarming of
the native population of a country in which military occupation has
taken place is an imperative necessity."

"Peaceful inhabitants, voluntarily surrendering their arms,
should be guaranteed protection by those forces charged with the
restoration and maintenance of peace and order. where it possible to
disarm completely the -whole population, the military features of
small wars would resolve themselves into simple police duties of a
routine nature. Obviously, considering the size of the population,
the extent of territory, and the limited number of available troops,
any measures adopted will not he 100 percent effective. However,
if properly executed, the native military organizations and a large
proportim~, of the populace may be disarmed voluntarily; many
others will be disarmed by military or police measures designed to
locate and confiscate arms held clandestinely, These measures will
limit the outstanclin~ arms to those held by a few individuals who
will seek to hide them. In many instances, these hidden arms will
be exposed to the elements or to deterioration which in time will
accomplish the same end as surrender or confiscation. Although
complete disarmament may not be attained, yet the enforcement
of any ordinance restricting the possession of arms will result in the
illegal possession of such arms oldy by opposing native forces, outlaws or
bandits, and a few inh:lbitants who will evade this ordinance as they
would attempt to do with ally unpopular legislation. Comparatively
few of this latter class will use their weapons except in selfdefense.
Thus the inhabitants are partially segregated at the outset
of the negotiations. The chswning order will probably not influence
the professional guerrilla fighters to give up their weapons but,
such source of supp]y and replenishment of weapons and anmunition
within the country will be practically eliminated."

I agree with most of the points made here.

Well Doody, I think Donald Rumfeld has to go. Everytime his head appears on the telly and he opens that mouth my blood starts to boil. I bet a lot of Iraqis' feel the same.

He is a public relations nightmare. One of Bush's buddies!!!!!!

The bad security will continue unfortunately. If you can't make the Green Zone safe what can be made safe? Disbanding the Iraqi army conscripts is now seen as a stupid decision.

Using Chalabi as a potential leader????????? What a sad joke on the Iraqi people.

How come Garner only lasted for 5 minutes??????

The US doing deals with the Kurds, is going to come back and haunt the US when someone tries to work out the power sharing arrangements in the future government. Particularly with the Shiite majority.

The election in January and beyond are going to be interesting times!!!