decisions to dissolve the Iraqi army and ban Baath Party members from positions of authority were as deliberate as they were misguided. In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, anyone seeking a management job—from school principal or police captain to the head of the intelligence service—was obliged to join the Baath Party. So were applicants for Iraq’s universities. Overnight, tens of thousands of professional workers and experienced bureaucrats were out of work, and U.S. officials in Iraq found themselves confronting two mammoth problems.
