5 Decisions That Helped Define the Iraq War Forever

As so many RallyPoint members deployed to Iraq, or have friends who did, we’re examining some of the most significant decisions made during the Iraq War. These 5 decisions below may have helped defined the Iraq War’s present and future outcomes forever, for better or for worse. Some are the subject of scholarly debate to this day, and may be subject to one's own interpretation.

What other decisions would you add to this list? Which of these decisions impacted your unit, or a friend’s unit, during an Iraq deployment?

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1. Replacing Jay Garner with Paul Bremer
President Bush decided in late April 2003 to remove Jay Garner and put Paul Bremer in complete charge of Iraq. Garner had experience in Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War and had been a career Army officer. In his preparations, he had worked closely with military planners. Bremer had no experience in Iraq or in Intelligence and National Security occupations. Secretary of State Colin Powell would later say that he was “stunned” by decisions made without his knowledge, as part of Bremer’s transition process.

2. De-Baathification
In his de-Bathification order (Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1 of 16 May 2003), Bremer ordered that all senior party members would be banned from serving in the government and the top three layers of officials of all government ministries were removed, even if they were not senior members of the Baath Party. This included up to 85,000 people who, in Bremer’s eyes, were ‘true believers’ and adherents to Saddam’s regime. While Garner had planned a gradual approach to de-Baathification, Bremer’s approach was more far-reaching and draconian. There was broad consensus that top-level Saddam allies in the party had to be purged in order to show Iraqis that Saddam’s influence was gone. It is now reported in some circles that the military had a distinctly different understanding of the policy and that the CIA was not consulted.

3. Disbanding the Iraqi Army
Some historians argue that this was the administration's single biggest mistake in the first few months after Saddam Hussein's ouster – the order, in May 2003, to disband the Iraqi army. It was a move that put 250,000 young Iraqi men out of a job, out on the streets, angry, and armed – and all but guaranteed the violent chaos to come. Many former administration officials hold Bremer responsible for this decision, but some historians explain that he was deliberately made into the “fall guy”for it once this decision started to backfire.

4. Creation of the Sunni Awakening
Even before the sectarian bloodletting of 2006, US military forces had quietly begun supplying and training local Sunni tribal militias in Anbar province to take on al-Qaeda in Iraq. That program eventually grew into a countrywide Sunni Awakening Movement largely credited with reducing al-Qaeda influence on a local level and bringing the sectarian war to an end. The groups were essentially paid by the US government to patrol neighborhoods, fight insurgents and not to fight US or Iraqi forces. The Iraqi government, then led by al-Maliki, took on responsibility for the movement in 2008, and promised to pay the roughly 50,000 members. Later al-Maliki’s government tried to disband what it feared might become a sectarian militia by promising to absorb about a quarter of the members into the army, and providing vocational training and employment to others.

5. Saddam Hussein Captured, Then Put On Trial
Operation Red Dawn was conducted on 13 December 2003 in the town of ad-Dawr, Iraq, near Tikrit, that led to the capture of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The operation was named after the 1984 film Red Dawn. The mission was assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General Ray Odierno and led by Colonel James Hickey of the 4th Infantry Division, with joint operations Task Force 121 – an elite and covert joint special operations team. They searched two sites, "Wolverine 1" and "Wolverine 2," outside the town of ad-Dawr, but did not find Hussein. A continued search between the two sites found Hussein hiding in a "spider hole" at 2030hrs local Iraqi time. Hussein did not resist capture. He was subsequently put on trial and hanged.