“No End In Sight” – another great, disturbing documentary

No End in Sight is a documentary film that concentrates on alleged mistakes made by the Bush administration in the two-to-three-month period following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The film portrays these errors as the cause of ensuing problems in Iraq, such as the rise of the insurgency, a lack of security and basic utilities for many Iraqis, sectarian violence and the risk of complete civil war.
To a large extent the film consists of interviews with the people who were involved in the initial Iraqi occupation authority and the ORHA (the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, later replaced by the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority). 35 people are interviewed, many of them former Bush loyalists who have since become disillusioned by what they experienced at the time. In particular, many of those interviewed claim that the inexperience of the core members of the Bush administration—and their refusal to seek, acknowledge or accept input from more experienced outsiders—was at the root of the disastrous occupation effort.
Among those interviewed are
▪ General Jay Garner, who briefly ran the reconstruction before being replaced by L. Paul Bremer
▪ Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was placed in charge of the Baghdad embassy
▪ Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of the State Department
▪ Robert Hutchings, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council
▪ Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff
▪ Col. Paul Hughes, who worked in the ORHA and then the CPA
According to No End in Sight, there were three especially grave mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA:
▪ A move toward “De-Ba’thification” in the early stages of the occupation. Saddam Hussein’s ruling Ba’th Party counted as its members a huge majority of Iraq’s governmental employees, including educational officials and some teachers. By order of the CPA, these skilled and ultimately apolitical individuals were banned from holding any positions in Iraq’s new government.
▪ Not providing enough troops to maintain order. The looting of Iraqi museums sent chilling signals to the average Iraqi, telling them that the American forces did not intend to maintain law and order. And arms depots were available for pillaging by anyone who wanted weapons and explosives.
▪ The disbanding of the Iraqi Army, which made 500,000 young men with weapons and training unemployed and bitter. Many of them decided that their best chance for a future was to join or, together with the rest of their unit, become a militia force.
The film cites these three mistakes, as well as many others, as the cause of the rapid deterioration of occupied Iraq into chaos.