The disbanding of the Iraqi army shortly after the U.S. began its occupation is widely considered one of the biggest blunders of the war. So why did the administration make such a disastrous decision? Don’t ask President Bush: He can’t remember.
Los Angeles Times:
“The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen,” Bush told biographer Robert Draper in excerpts published in Sunday’s New York Times.
Draper pressed Bush to explain why, if he wanted to maintain the army, his chief administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, issued an order in May 2003 disbanding the 400,000-strong army without pay.
“Yeah, I can’t remember; I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” Bush said, adding: “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all this stuff” — a reference to national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley.