Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 47

MILITARY OCCUPATION

and political chaos followed by the painful necessity of
little continuity, and little real leverage in terms of actutrying to select and develop fresh, politically acceptable al power to get things done. Moreover, staffers—most
leadership at practically every level. In contrast to the
of whom were political appointees of some kind—
relatively efficient transition to national administration filtered in and out of the CPA with dizzying speed.
and governance in the Japanese occupation, the process Some were there for weeks, some for months, some
used in Iraq effectively stymied efforts to
normalize and efficiently manage reconstruction and governance throughout Iraq
for the better part of the following decade
during and after the occupation.
Military- versus Civilian-led
Occupational Government. Additionally,
the method of leadership the United States
employed was radically different from the
situation that prevailed in the Japanese
occupation as compared to that in Iraq.
The occupation of Japan was overseen
and administered through a U.S. military
government. As a result, the American
leadership was overwhelmingly military,
which provided well-defined levels of
responsibility and a clear chain of com(Photo courtesy of Flickr)
mand up to Gen. Douglas MacArthur,
Demobilizing
World
War
II
Japanese
Army
veterans
awaiting
a
train
in Sasebo,
the Supreme Commander for the Allied
Japan, circa 1945.
Powers (SCAP—an acronym that came to
denote both MacArthur and the overall bureaucracy of for just a few days. But very few stayed for the length
the occupation). Under military occupational governof the CPA’s short existence, and even fewer remained
ment, similar to wartime, soldiers were assigned in
from the time of the CPA’s predecessor, the Office of
organized units, remained for relatively long periods of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Activities (ORHA).
time under military discipline and direction, and were
Consequently, there was little in the way of institutiongiven specifically assigned tasks and missions as directal memory or established networks of personal relaed by the chain of authority, the progress of which they
tionships with the Iraqis.
were required to report. One result was accountability
As noted, even for their short stints in the orgaand follow through at all levels.
nization, few staffers actually worked directly for the
By comparison, although under the Department of
CPA. Instead, many reported back to their home
Defense, and supported by Combined Joint Task Force
offices without any direct accountability to Bremer.
7, Iraq’s CPA was little more than an ad hoc exercise for Consequently, there was no clear chain of command
the year of its existence.
and weak mechanisms for assigning and enforcing auMy office, OPPA, worked directly for the CPA
thority. For example, one individual, who had somehow
director, Amb. L. Paul Bremer. He was a decisive man,
attached himself to the OPPA, had volunteered to
but he could only get to so much in his inbox each
come up with an antiterrorism policy for the Interim
day as he tried to function in an organization that was
Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), which he committed
constantly in flux with no clear chain of command
to have ready to deliver to the IGC by a date fixed in
and little accountability to him directly within each
December 2003. That individual also kept desks in two
organization. While there were several capable leaders
other CPA sections, and we did not see much of him in
immediately below him, below them was a chaotic and
the weeks prior to the due date of the policy. But, twendysfunctional organizational structure that provided
ty-four hours before the policy was due to the IGC, he
MILITARY REVIEW  May-June 2016

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