Shock &Awe - "the demobilization of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli - UK senior officials

"It has become conventional wisdom that the decision to disband Sadam Hussein 's army was a mistake, was contrary to American prewar planning and was a decision I made on my own. In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision.

By the time Baghdad fell on April 9, the Iraqi Army had simply dissolved. "

Is how L.Paul "call me Jerry" Bremer IIIrd the booted and suited US pro consul sets off defending himself against the charges of unilaterally disbanding the Iraqi Army in the New York Times today.

Do you like that ? ..."the Iraqi Army had simply dissolved." .. oh no it didn 't Jerry, it had been smashed to pieces. Perhaps you remember Shock and Awe when missiles, ordnance, mortars bombs were providing the Western news media with the Mother of All Firework shows.
What do you think they were doing Jerry ? Bombing sand ?

A strategy known as "Shock and Awe", conceived at the National Defense University in Washington, in which a blitzkreig of 400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 GulfWar.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a Pentagon official told America's CBS News after a briefing on the plan. "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before."

The first attack on Baghdad came from 320 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by ships in the Gulf and the Red Sea, said Rear Admr. Matthew G. Moffit, commander of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk battle group.

Ordnance crews worked steadily through the day attaching global positioning system and laser guidance kits to 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound HE bombs and moving the ordnance from the ship's 22 weapons magazine to holding bays.

Dozens of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornet strike planes loaded with bombs roared off the Kitty Hawk's deck before nightfall Friday.

Ten US warships were involved in the attack, including four cruisers, four destroyers and two submarines, the admiral said.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "several hundred military targets will be hit over the coming hours."

..... reported CBS

Jerry goes on to explain the CPA's national security adviser, Walter Slocombe, On May 13, en route to Baghdad, he briefed senior British officials in London who told him they recognized that “the demobilization of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli.” (Which is the standard understated British way of saying that they had been bombed to shit - they had been de-mobilised but not by handing in their pay books and letters of commissiion) His report the humourless and dumb Jerry adds, said “if some U.K. officers or officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old R.A. (Republican Army), they did not give any hint of it in our meetings, and in fact agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector.”

Walter was interviewed on PBS October 26th 2004 and he described himself as ..."My formal title was senior adviser for national security and defense, (he is a lawyer) and in effect, I had responsibility for, so to speak, the past, present and future of the Iraqi military, the Iraqi military's property and the factories that they ran, and to a limited degree, the intelligence system. ..."

He says ...." I've never seen the famous State Department 1,000-page analysis of what to do except insofar as it related to the military. I hadn't seen that. But as reported to me, it essentially was how should you deal with the intact military units, a problem which is irrelevant."

"I don't know to what degree there was a prediction of a Baathist-led, stay-behind, very narrowly based but quite professional terrorist resistance. People kind of blandly say that that was what they expected, and there may well be people who did. I don't know who they are."

You see Jerry " ...how should you deal with the intact military units, a problem which is irrelevant" ..irrelevant Jerry because they didn't exist. They were dead. Kaput. Corpses - that's what Shock and Awe does Jerry.

Of course we don't do body counts Jerry -