"Your manuscript (Letters to Bloomington, Ill.) offers a great deal of wisdom to the people of America."-Helen K. Copley, Publisher of the San Diego Union TribuneSome Words of Advice to the Commander-in-Chief shares insight from a former Vietnamese officer whose thorough research has provided him with an in-depth understanding of how the Iraq War became such a quagmire and how the United States can avoid such disasters in the future. Long-time immigrant Le Tat Dieu worked as a writer and journalist in Vietnam and fought with the Americans as a member of the South Vietnamese army. As a result, he has an interesting perspective on the Iraq War. While presenting a simple and clear analysis of the war, he reveals the ignorant and shocking miscalculations by former President George W. Bush and members of his administration. As Le Tat Dieu exposes the horrifically wrong premises that motivated the actions of Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer, and many others, he examines the consequences of invading Iraq and the eventual occupation which no current or future United States President should ignore.
Some Words of Advice to the Commander-in-Chief
What you Don't Know Might Hurt your CountryBy Le Tat DieuiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Le Tat Dieu
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4401-5666-3Chapter One
When the Disaster Started
Dear Commander-in-Chief,
On August 20, 2003, I wrote in the Little Saigon magazine about a decision that undermined the American efforts and good intention in Iraq as follows:
Arriving in Baghdad in May 03, and after only a few days as Iraq's top civil administrator, L Paul Bremer threw his first "country-rebuilding" punch that defied all common sense: He ordered the dissolution of the Iraqi armed forces and several security bodies.
These forces were not temporarily "laid off", but permanently dismissed, because the new King decided that he would create a new police force and a new army for his kingdom.
It was quite obvious that Bremer had little knowledge about the basic thinking and reaction of humankind.
Here are some of the things he either forgot or ignored:
Iraqi soldiers are human being, too, and like Americans and people all over the world they have a need to feed themselves, their spouses, and their children. From out of nowhere comes a guy from abroad who identifies himself as a great liberator yet robs them of the means to earn a living, depriving their families of food, clothing and shelter. Naturally, they will become angry, as would any ordinary people who find themselves in the same situation. Many may even choose violence to protect their survival.
Now an American who is fired unjustly (or believes he is being unjustly fired, treated unfairly, etc.) may become dangerous. Some come back to the workplace with a gun. (In the latest incident on Aug. 27, 03 in Chicago, the fourth in the U.S. this year, 7 lives were lost.) The Iraqis, no matter how nave, timid, uneducated, or terrified by America's power, are people, too. And people who are oppressed and desperate can easily become dangerous.
Ambassador Bremer, in one fell swoop, fired the entire Iraqi armed forces and several security bodies, sacking about a half million in staff. All of them have weapons, have been trained to shoot and kill, and have been through several wars that went on for years. Those half million unemployed, angry, and desperate fighters also have families, relatives, and friends who are now also put in that same desperate situation. This would raise the number of people who would likely want to repel the "invaders" to a million. Wow!
Just like magic, in only the few seconds it took for Bremer to sign orders of dissolution, he instantly created another million formidable enemies for American soldiers to deal with. (I say "another" because the invasion itself had brought them quite a few already.)
The result of Bremer's action came quickly.
Thousands of Iraqi officers and soldiers demonstrated, peacefully at first, to protest Bremer's orders, and to request the liberators respect their right to live by paying them a salary. In a deadly moment, U.S. soldiers shot into the crowd, killing two former Iraqi officers and wounding a dozen, explaining that they were returning fire.
In the funeral for the two victims, the crowd no longer asked for salaries or any other favors from the liberator. They shouted a vow of revenge, and death wishes to America.
I don't know how talented Mr. Bremer was to earn the position of representing America and leading the U.S. liberation team in Iraq. But based on his first rebuilding measure, I am afraid that his judgment, knowledge, and intelligence may not even be enough for the position of a human resources manager of a small company in the U.S.
In the U.S., if a human resources manager starts to rebuild his company by firing everybody at once and then filling up all positions with newly hired people, he would put the company in deep trouble. The former employees would sue the employer to the last penny. The more aggressive ones would picket in front of the company with the potential of it exploding into a violent confrontation. If those fired employees were still living inside the company (were not deported to ... Iran or Jordan) sabotage would occur as frequently as the news that arrives daily on the desk of Mr. Bremer, reporting incidences of U.S. soldiers being ambushed and killed.
Awakened by the deadly conflict caused by his creative rebuilding program, Mr. Bremer tried to initiate damage control. He threw out a new order: The Iraqi armed forces are still being dissolved, no changes. But the army officers will continue to receive their salaries.
To save himself from embarrassment, Bremer ordered the Iraqi officers to sign papers vowing to renounce their loyal to Saddam Hussein and his Baath party. This was to show the whole world, and especially Bremer's superiors, that he had initially denied those men their livelihoods because they had failed to sign some very important, precious papers.
Unfortunately, while taking the above corrective measures, Bremer was only half-awake. His mind was only clear on part of the whole picture. He forgot something: the Iraqi soldiers and their families have the same unfortunate habit as the officers; without food, they also feel hungry and need to eat!
By paying only the officers, Bremer's rescue plan did not reach the soldiers and their families, who were poorer and more desperate. The majority of the angry crowd was still in the hole Bremer had dug. What made this man think that his revised plan, which only solved a tiny part of the problem, could satisfy a half of million angry and humiliated fighters?
The crowd refused to calm down, so Bremer began reconsidering his decision to dissolve the armed forces. But then, he changed his mind. He flatly announced: No changes are necessary. He would rebuild for Iraq, in three years time, an army of 40,000, one-tenth the size of the former forces.
The Iraqi soldiers now had a definite decision about their future: Ambassador Bremer had no way for them to work or make a living in the job of their choice. Even if Mr. Bremer were kind enough to build the new armed forces with all re-hired soldiers, only 40,000 would have jobs - 40,000 out of a half million hopeless and desperate men.
On the surface, and despite their doubts about the "good intentions" of the Liberator, the Iraqi soldiers seemed to accept their new fate, stopped demonstrating and peacefully disappeared.
But are they really gone, those poor professional fighters? I'll address this question later.
One thing I know for sure: They totally disappeared from the reports of Mr. Bremer - from his press releases and conferences. Actually they had never appeared in any of them. Bremer never pointed his finger to those unemployed Iraqis while identifying the terrorists who are now causing all kinds of trouble in Iraq.
To explain the ambushes, attacks and killings of American soldiers happening almost daily, Bremer and the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed the identity of the culprits. At first, they blamed Saddam, who had released thousands of criminals before the invasion.
They said that those criminals were now committing all kinds of crimes in Iraq, including ambushing and attacking American soldiers and whoever cooperated or worked with the U.S. Then Baath party loyalists and the remnants of Saddam's Fedayeen were accused. The terrorist group al-Taifa al-Mansouri, stationed far away somewhere in Algeria, also made the list of troublemakers. Then Mr. Bremer's intelligence suddenly pointed to Ansar Al Islam as the real...
