Poor planning on the part of American strategists can be blamed for the failure to stop the violence in Iraq which culminated last Tuesday with the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, say defence and security experts.
The dismantling of Iraq's military and security forces on May 23 by US civil administrator Paul Bremer was cited as the biggest mistake. The decision led to the breakdown of border controls, law and order, analysts claimed.
The head of defence analysis at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, Christopher Langton, believes the top echelons of the army had been closely linked to Saddam Hussein and should have been removed, but lesser ranks were clearly not.
'The other major mistake was that in sacking the army, there was no real demobilisation, disarmament and training programme,' he said. 'At a stroke, they put a large number of dissatisfied, armed people into the equation of disorder who were not in there before.'
Immediately, the maintenance of security fell to the 147,000 American troops and 13,000 from 19 other nations in the coalition - less than a quarter of the strength maintained by Mr Hussein. Specialised security and policing skills did not exist in the US military.
Defence and security expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, James Jay Carafano said offering to pay the Iraqi soldiers and keeping them on the streets would have been a wiser move.