| Foreseeable Mistakes |
1 December 2003
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Pro-Consul Garner Admits Errors in Occupied Iraq
Among the hardest things for anyone to do is admit mistakes. When a political leader does it, it makes headlines because it requires such straight forward honesty that it stands out in the grubby half-truth world of running peoples' lives. When the man in charge of ruling an occupied nation admits to errors, the only thing harder is to avoid saying, "Told you so."
In a radio interview with the BBC, retired general Jay Garner, top Yank in Baghdad, said, “If we did it over again, we probably would have put more dismounted infantrymen in Baghdad and maybe more troops there.” He added that disbanding the Iraqi army was probably a bad idea, "I think it was a mistake. We planned ... on bringing the Iraqi army back and using them in reconstruction.” This was easier, since his predecessor Paul Bremer make that mistake.
He also said, “I think there was a lot of thought ... on how to do postwar Iraq. I just don’t think that it unfolded the way everybody expected it to unfold.” Then, clearly, there was a lot of bad thinking going on. Other mistakes, “I’d have brought in huge generators," yes, of course! “We should have tried to raise a government a little faster than we did,” actually behaving like liberators. “I think we are finally placing more trust in Iraqis, which we should have done to begin with,” uh-huh.
Of course, he should be given the benefit of the doubt now. Evidently, he has seen the light, and will do a much better job in future. Toward the end of the interview he added, “The international war on terrorism began to be fought in Iraq. That’s not all bad. Bring ’em all in there, we’ll kill ’em there.” On second thought, perhaps he should do the right thing and resign.
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