De-Ba'athification
The overarching goal of the invasion was the seizure and removal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and the creation of a democratic government in the Middle East to help fight the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
Pursuant to these overarching goals, de-Ba'athification was seen as the logical way to ensure that a previously entrenched, undemocratic, and by all accounts unpopular regime and its influences on political culture were removed.
[20][21][22][23][24] De-Ba'athification, as a part of the overall occupation strategy, was delegated to the United States Department of Defense per National Security Presidential Directive 24 issued on 20 January 2003, only 60 days prior to the 20 March 2003 invasion.
[9][25] Although the idea of a de-Ba'athification policy was articulated by Ahmad Chalabi and Iraqi National Congress, their comparisons to de-Nazification caught the attention of Douglas Feith, the head of the Office of Special Plans.
[26][27][28] During the 60 days allotted for post-war occupation, the more stringent Department of Defense version was drafted by the Office of Special Plans in spite of the 10 March National Security Council compromise.
[9] To this end, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith created the Office of Special Plans in order to devise Department of Defense strategy for occupying Iraq.
[31] Then director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet later wrote "We knew nothing about it until de-Baathification was a fait accompli... Clearly, this was a critical policy decision, yet there was no NSC Principals meeting to debate the move.
According to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Douglas Feith, one of the primary architects of the de-Ba'athification policy, was heavily influenced by the ideas promoted by Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.
[9] In the previous post-war occupations of Germany and Japan, the United States, in partnership with other Allied Powers, pursued a policy of total removal of any influence related to Nazi or Imperial Japanese ideologies.
2, failing to provide information regarding Ba'ath Party assets was a punishable offense, and under the terms of the Order, an individual could be fined $1000 USD or 1 year imprisonment.
This change in position is reflected in the preamble which states, "Observing that under the prior regime some Iraqis may have become affiliated with the Baath Party for reasons not primarily related to their ideological beliefs..." The memo, rescinding CPA Order No.
The Governing Council and its affiliates were also held accountable by way of submitting monthly reports to the CPA regarding actions taken against Iraqi citizens, and the names of individuals hired to replace those removed under the criteria of Order No.
The process of implementing de-Ba'athification was complicated by the chaos following the initial invasion,[9] and the general confusion of authority between ORHA's role in post-war reconstruction and the eventual creation of the CPA headed by Paul Bremer.
"[22] According to one critic of the policy, Ambassador Barbara Bodine stated that such a broad and deep attempt to remove and ostracize individuals from public life had never occurred in previous US occupations (i.e. Germany and Japan).
The guiding principle behind the memorandum was to be quick and penetrating by initially assigning the policy's enforcement to Coalition Forces and posting military investigators in all government ministries.
[50] The review also states that 32,000 were given training to replace removed employees, but other sources, such as Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, describes how Sunni dominated areas were left with only one or two schoolteachers as a result of de-Ba'athification.
[15] Another al-Jazeera article interviews a Ba'ath Party member that suggests that attempting to remove all Ba'athists from the public sector because of the actions of Saddam and some of the leaders both goes against constitutional principles, but practically will not allow for the creation of a legitimate political system in the eyes of many Iraqis.
Proponents of de-Ba'athification, such as Ahmad Chalabi, argued that similarly qualified, non-Ba'athist Iraqis exist to fill the positions left open by removed Ba'athists.
The major shortage of appropriately skilled workers subsequently showed that this was not the case, and proponents significantly underestimated the time required to replace and train much of the public sector workforce.
[76] As such, many Iraqis removed under the de-Ba'athification program expressed frustration that they were being targeted for membership when it was a de facto requirement for career advance, and had little to do with their personal ideologies or political positions.
However, the public sector clearly suffered a great deal as a result of de-Ba'athification and the disbanding of the Iraqi military and affiliated entities with conservative job-loss estimates in the thousands.
An NPR interview with several Iraqi directors who were recently removed from their positions within the banking industry, shows how devastating not only the prospect of unemployment, but the interviewee bemoans his loss of a pension after all his years of work.
[53] The point noted by International Crisis Group's assessment of thousands of young unemployed Iraqis, without the possibility of employment or a future pension is a dangerous factor within an occupation scenario.
[59] This fragmentation was also noted as a detrimental side effect of the de-Ba'athification policy by Juan Cole, who stated that "Sunni Arabs need to be reassured that they are not going to be the low people on the totem pole in the new Iraq.
In addition to the general chaos of Iraq following the initial invasion, looting and vandalism were rampant, and led to the destruction of the Interior and Industry Ministries, responsible for internal order and security and state-owned businesses respectively.
[82] With the unemployment rate exacerbated by de-Ba'athification, the unrest of previously employed civil servants and military personnel contributed to the overall decay of the security situation in Iraq.
[89] Supporting this view is Rajiv Chandrasekaran's conversation with a former soldier in the Iraqi Army: This quote also reveals that the insurgency was not only a means of expressing anger at a Coalition occupation of Iraq, but also motivated by economic and employment necessities.
[52][62] Additionally, Chandrasekaran cited the CPA's inability to adequately provide services as a motivation for individuals to join the insurgency in order to retaliate against the power perceived as responsible for their plight.
[94] The legislation, entitled the Accountability and Justice Act reflects the US desire to see competent individuals return to the folds of government, and also providing less incentive for Sunni Arabs to feel ostracized and sympathetic to insurgency.
[97] Iraqi diplomat Feisal al-Istrabadi, lead drafter of the 2004 Transitional Administrative Law, criticized the overreach of Paul Bremer's De-Ba'athification policy, which "captured a large number of people who were innocent of any wrongdoing by any objective measure and were deprived of the ability to earn a living and support their families," thereby feeding the insurgency.
