Paul Bremer
who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, NBC Television said on Friday.
Bremer, interviewed by the network in connection with release of his book on Iraq, recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly after arriving in Baghdad, a move many experts consider a major miscalculation.
When asked who was to blame for the subsequent Iraqi rebellion, in which thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died, Bremer said "we really didn't see the insurgency coming," the network said in a news release.
Are you kidding me? Even I, sitting in Connecticut miles away, never having seen the battle plans, never having been to Iraq, never leading a military batallion...I expected a tri-party civil war with our troops stuck in the middle. Wow, maybe I should have been called in to the preparation meetings.
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