"No End In Sight"

A fine film which contributes to our understanding of how we got where we are today in Iraq.

Although I don't think it generally offers a lot of new information vis-a-vis the utter incompetence and seeming insanity of the early days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, this movie offers a lot more of the fine details which have not been widely known. It is also enough to get your blood boiling and remind you just how wrong certain pundits who are now saying the "surge" is working were back in the early days running up to the war ("We will be greeted as liberators.." etc.).

Possibly the most shocking fact presented in this movie was that the post-invasion plan had U.S. soldiers beginning to draw-down by the fall of 2003. It throws a stark light on our leaders' lack of understanding of what we were getting into. Rumsfeld in particular looks extremely bad in retrospect, laughing at and making light of the riots and looting which took place at the beginning of the insurgency. There is a special place in hell reserved for him.

The movie includes very specific examples of the incredible detachment of Paul Bremer from anything resembling the on-the-ground reality in Iraq. The rule you get from the numerous interviews with several members of the post-invasion transition team (the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, also known as ORHA - only brought into being for post-invasion planning some two months prior to the war!) was that the more knowledge and competence you had, the further out of the loop you were pushed by Bremer and his henchmen. Yet another example of what you get when you place ideology and conformity ahead of competence (and this from an allegedly "conservative" administration?).

Also detailed is that fact that ORHA was in touch with a number of Iraqi army commanders who had a large numbers of troops ready and willing to cooperate with the post-invasion planners. It appears that large parts of the army simply did not want to risk their lives on behalf of Saddam and instead had developed elaborate plans to keep the army together for post-invasion cooperation with the U.S. (the army disbanded and went home but kept in contact, sometimes by couriers). ORHA had these contacts ready to go when presidential envoy Bremer came onto the scene, but they were ignored. Worse, as is well known, Bremer had the incredibly self-destructive idea of disbanding the Iraqi army, which he put into force apparently without *any* discussion with the Army, the State Department, or the occupation team already in place in Iraq. The result of this idea and the contribution it had to the Iraqi insurgency that followed is also well known.

There is a special place in hell reserved for Paul Bremer.

One issue that I have with the movie which admittedly might or might not be fair is that it seems to imply that if the post-invasion planning had been done properly the invasion might have gone well (i.e. that it takes issue with the means but not the end of regime change in Iraq). The end is what is illegitimate here.

One question which came to my mind while watching this movie: Did they do it on purpose? Was the plan in fact actually to create a simmering civil war and a long-term U.S. occupation of Iraq? Of course you'd then have to ask - who does this benefit? Certainly not the United States. Who then?