Can any oldfags tell us about the beginning of the 'insurgency' after the Iraq war? From basic timelines, it looks like the war was 'finished' by late April (Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech was on May 1st), but then the war started again by August, when the UN ambassador and a couple dozen staffers/bystanders got blown up in Baghdad. And after that, bombings became bigger and more frequent.
What happened from May to July? What was going on in Iraq during those three months? Why did US occupation authorities like Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer allow an insurgency to develop?
the best book is called 'Cobra II'. it is a masterpiece on the lead up and US intentions. from there, what happened is the US dispersed all formations of the Iraqi army and de-Baath party'd the entire contry. all the former stood-down/surrendered regime soldiers went home (most of the best units were from Sunni/Saddam loyalists regions), were unemployed, were thrown out of all work, and formed organizations opposed to the state the US imposed.
the state remains the cause of war.
Austin Turner
Just watch like the first 10 min if you cant watch the whole thing
They officially disbanded all the old iraqi power structures may 23 2003, many people cite that as a critical mistake
William Thomas
the frontline catalog on Iraq is a masterpiece also.
John Bell
Basically, we rushed to Baghdad engaging any regular forces in the way. Whole towns were skipped over or bypassed and we made to effort to secure them. We patted ourselves on the back upon reaching Baghdad and left an entire countryside of former baathists, military members and feuding tribes in the wake which then organized and fought us with guerilla warfare tactics.
Jackson Edwards
Toppling saddam was easy The massive power vacuum left behind that no one understood (suni v shia muslims) was then a civil war for power and control.
Naturally the US chose the denomination of islam that would prevail expecting they could solve 1500 years of religious differences.
Jason Bailey
When the entire army is disbanded there are a lot of pissed off men of fighting age who take their AK's home
The military kept talking about “Bathist holdouts” and then they memed Zarqawi traveling into Iraq and then starting an insurgency. Bombings got more frequent but it really got nuts when they blew up a shiite mosque. That basically started a civil war
Grayson White
A good lesson to be learned: If you want to end an insurgency, give men something better to do than become insurgents.
Jaxson Gray
I see references in old news articles to 'the Saddam Fedayeen.'
Elijah Young
>What happened from May to July? Looting, settling of scores by Iraqis, Paul Bremer pulling his pants down and having diarrhea on everything. >Why did US occupation authorities like Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer allow an insurgency to develop? Because they were incompetent and the United States didn't know how to fight an insurgency and was uninterested in learning. Reading one of the many books written about the war and occupation from back then is really the only proper way to understand just how unprepared and stupid American conduct was during that time. It's almost beyond parody.
American thinking about postwar Iraq is probably eerily similar to how Putin and the Russian government thought postwar Ukraine would be: they'll be greeted as liberators, there'll be no major problems and things will work out for the best.
Wrong war friendo.
Oh Jesus I remember the government repeatedly blaming everything on muh baathist holdouts even long after it was stupidly obvious that was not the case.
Carter Flores
more like dont make enemies of your friends.
Ian Rogers
the insurgency, as i remember it pretty much began with 2 things 1) the CIArab decapitation of Nick Berg 2) uprising by Muqtaba Al Sadr and his Mahdi army
Adrian Stewart
Basically, a lot of humvees started getting blown up with IEDs. This was back in the old days before the US developed the MRAP which can withstand them more or less. A lot of lads got blown up as well as taking small arms fire.
Then in 2004/2005? or so an Iraqi militia took control of Fallujah and some journalists got abducted and their heads cut off. This lead to Bush ordering a "surge" in 2006/2007? (my memory is fuzzy) and by 2008-2009 things calmed down.
Gavin Peterson
Muqtada al-Sadr
Noah Collins
The fucking CIA and military were in talks to keep the Iraqi army in uniforms and then Paul Bremer, the guy in charge of Iraq decided to disband them, probably so Washington could make money off a never-ending (((reconstruction))) effort.
Grayson Green
Based Mullah Atari.
Aiden Morales
They should've just left Garner in charge.
Jack Powell
and also, the coalition didnt allow former Iraqi soldiers from working in the new government, and the US also went full tard and gave power to Shiites in majority Sunni areas of Iraq, which led to sectarian violence and the formation of Al Qaeda in Iraq
Dude disbanding the army and opening up a never-ending (((reconstruction))) effort was probably why they fired him in the first place. The fish rots from the head, Bush (((couldn't remember))) who gave the order to disband.
Owen Hill
Bremer was the one who ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the whole de-Baathification fiasco. Garner was only a temporary head of the occupation.
Robert Young
>the US also went full tard and gave power to Shiites in majority Sunni areas of Iraq
That's classic colonialism though. Keep 90% unarmed, give rifles to 9% and keep the automatic weapons for your 1% of overseers. Better yet if the 9% are an ethnic minority already present.
Jack Garcia
for sure. it was a money thing that never made sense.
Camden Wright
Right and Bremer was put there because Bush and his cronies were poised to make money off of the occupation, and Garner, being not as evil as them, would never allow that.
Luis Adams
As an oldfag who went through it, we:
a. Didn't shatter them hard enough not to try anything stoopid (did many bypassings/drive-by shootings), which might have been OK if we acknowledged that; b. Idle hands do the Devil's work. Forget Clausewitz. Any casual reading of a Mark Twain novel would have shown you don't want a bunch of military aged males wandering around unsupervised in essentially a national fireworks store. With the added bonus of a liquor store. One guy's absolute literal quote: "Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy!" I knew we were fucked like Chuck.
Carson Lee
>Why did US occupation authorities like Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer allow an insurgency to develop? Partly to advance the notion they were democratizing the country, which required de-Ba'athification, so they dismantled the party's power base, the army and security apparatus, apparently unaware these people were not just going to give up.
lolnope the Shia contribution to the insurgency was nothing compared to ass hurt Ba'athists.
Wyatt Price
Was Bush even in charge of anything? From what I'm reading, it seems like a lot of 'direction' on Iraq was coming from the vice president's office and the 'Office of Special Plans' run from the vice-president's office by Douglas Feith.
