[Kaj]

According to Col Hughes, Jay Garner's top liaison with senior Iraqi military leaders, they could have gotten over 100,000 almost immediately. It would hardly be difficult -- Iraqi soldiers needed paychecks, do you think they wanted to be thrown to the streets with no job and no prospects after being part of a respected military? How do you think a half million American soldiers would feel if an occupying force moved in to America, supposedly to liberate them, and then barred them from serving in a security capacity, the only thing they are really trained to do. And then these soldiers watch security breakdown all around them and their beloved country turn into a violent shithole while the occupiers stand by and let it happen. They'd probably get the idea that the occupiers weren't here to liberate and rebuild but to conquer and control. Hughes hit the nail on the head. The way we treated the Iraqi military sent a very clear message -- we are in charge now, it's our country to secure, not yours anymore. And then when security broke down, we made our intentions clear to the rest of the nation by securing only one piece of infrastructure: the oil ministry and oil fields, even while our soldiers stood idly by requesting to secure important Iraqi cultural buildings but were ordered to do nothing.

Please watch the movie. It is not a propaganda job but is basically those on the ground and in charge of the initial reconstruction telling with their own words how politics and administration appointees bungled this whole thing. Arrogance and incompetence with a healthy dose of corruption.