Consequences of Iraqi De-Baathification

Abstract

Ambassador Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority, America’s interim government between Saddam’s fall and the independent establishment of a new Iraqi government, issued two specific orders during his term which combined to create a power vacuum in the weakened nation. The first order, or the De-Baathification order, eliminated the top four tiers of Saddam’s Baath party from current and future positions of civil service. The second disbanded the Iraqi military. Both orders worked to eliminate the institutional memory of all Iraqi institutions, requiring Bremer to establish the nation’s new government from its foundations up. This resulted in a poor security situation that ultimately allowed a strong insurgency, recruited from unemployed disaffected youth, to develop, which paved the way for the beginnings of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.