Nick Kuhn

Mr. Yanni
Contemporary American
19 September 2015
Losing Iraq Documentary

Many things went terribly wrong in Iraq after the United States occupation
started. After the September eleventh attacks in America President George Bush sent
thousands of U.S troops over to Iraq. Many people expected the Iraq War to be quick
and easy, the troops would be in and out in a short period of time. Almost everything
that could go wrong went wrong.
The first huge mistake that was made by President Bush was putting Paul
Bremer in total control over Iraq when the occupation started in 2003. Bremer had no
military experience prior to Iraq. Many military leaders were opposed to having
Bremer put in charge, but they were not listened to. Just days after Bremer arrived in
Iraq ,against the opinions of all military leaders in Iraq, he passed the Coalition
Provisional Authority Orders. Order number 1 de-Baathified the Iraqi government, and
order number 2 dissolved the Iraqi military. Passing these two orders put thousands of
Iraqis out of work, even if they had no involvement with Saddam Husseins Baath
Party.
The reactions of the Sunnis and the Shiites was obviously not good after what
Bremer did. There were riots, roadside bombings, and Iraqi militia attacking United
States troops. Also Iraqi people started to dislike the occupation , before they were

very supportive of the U.S troops. Some of these reactions were justified. Bremer had
no right to go into another country and put all of those people out of work. What
Bremer did was the same thing as if you got a new boss at work, and were fired
because you previously worked there when the old boss was in charge.
By passing these orders Bremer drove away many veteran military leaders. A
lot of these leaders just quit, because they felt their opinions were neglected and not
listened to. They were right, Bremer passed the Coalition acts even though all the
military leaders said it was a bad idea. Losing the Veterans hurt the U.S a lot. Most of
the leaders when the occupation started had already had years of experience in Iraq.
After they quit the U.S had to bring in more military leaders with not a lot of
experience, similar to Bremer. These leaders had no idea how to handle the Iraqi
people or the militias that were attacking them. This prolonged the war because these
leaders made a lot of wrong decisions which led to even more violence.
During the Iraq War the United States promoted their image, saying that
everything was going great in Iraq and we were standing strong. When really
everything in Iraq had been spiraling out of control from the day the U.S landed there.
I dont think that in anyways this was right, because of all the things the U.S was
doing to the Iraqi civilians. Imagine if all U.S citizens knew what was going on in Iraq.
Not everyone would be standing beside the decisions that Paul Bremer made. In what
world is putting thousands of innocent people out of work because of their race right?
ISIS one of the biggest threats the United States has had in a long time. An
even bigger threat then Al Qaeda . Al Qaeda is still a huge threat, but they are just one
group of people. ISIS is a group getting close to the millions, and they are extremists.

They have people that are in the U.S that are part of their group. The group consists of
people from all around the world. A lot of them even have U.S passports. Also no other
terrorist group has gone as far as capturing U.S journalists and beheading them on
video then releasing the video to the public. They are a very powerful group and it is
scary to think of the things they could possibly do.