What happened to Saddam's Sunni Army that was disbanded by the Americans??

[kentuck]

How are they connected to the present ISIS fighters?

I would like to hear more on this subject from the media but I will not hold my breath.

Are we to believe that they scattered to the countryside and became farmers? I doubt it.

Personally, I am more inclined to believe that they are the base of the ISIS fighters now in Iraq and their primary goal is to take Iraq back from the present Shite rulers.

At one time, America was paying them not to attack Americans in Ramadi and the Anbar province. They were paid a similar wage to that of the Iraqi soldier. But when the Iraqi government took control of the country, they totally neglected the Sunni minority population. Without the American support, many of them moved across the border into Syria and into the less populated areas of western Iraq. They organized themselves into units and groups intent on taking back their country.

In my opinion, this is what is happening in much of Iraq today, including Ramadi. I do not think we are getting the truth from our military or from our government. What we are witnessing in Iraq is nothing short of a civil war between the Shites and the Sunnis, in my opinion.

[malaise]

1. This

They organized themselves into units and groups intent on taking back their country.

And it is their country no matter what label we in the West choose to attach to them.
So much for being greeted as liberators -and garlands. And it's that that we never learn - it is that our leaders and war profiteers don't give a flying fuck.

[DURHAM D]

2. Chalabi and Bremer's De-Ba'athification

happened to Iraq. One of the dumbest decisions in history.

[leveymg]

3. Worse. US trained and equipped "Sons of Iraq" into Sunni militia groups in Anbar, creating ISIS in

Iraq. Other sources of ISIS were Jihadi groups in Libya and Syria, also trained and equipped with US help. A third recruiting and organization center for ISIS was the US military prisons that held a number of former Iraqi military officers, who also went on to form the nucleus of ISIS units. Thank Gen. Petraeus for all these brilliant strategies.

Petraeus admitted as much during a PBS interview last year: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/losing-iraq/david-petraeus-isiss-rise-in-iraq-isnt-a-surprise/

[DURHAM D]

4. Yep.

Yet Gen. Petraeus is still an adviser to the President. Guess he is getting a do-over.

[leveymg]

6. They're letting him finish the process of division of the region into warring factions he started.

It isn't just Iraq, it's the entire Mideast and Gulf that's being divided into ethnic zones, and that divide and conquer approach is quite intentional as the preferred way to neutralize the Arab and Persian worlds. That strategy isn't originally Petraeus' or even the Washington neocons - he's just the executioner.

The primal Mideast and Persian Gulf strategist that has for decades advocated for the ethnic division of the region who also foresaw the "Arab Spring", and even described the incipient mobilizing power of a Sunni Mahdi figure, UBL, years before other western regional "experts" is Bernard Lewis. See, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/bernard-lewis

[KG]

5. 'I do not think we are getting the truth from our military or from our government'

you'd be correct in that conclusion. about Iraq and many other subjects

[brush]

7. I think you're spot on with this.

When ISIS first came into our consciousness and rapidly took huge swaths of land it was surprising how quickly they were able to do that.

But it soon became apparent that there had to be professional solders leading this group — and there were/are — the ex-generals and colonels of the Iraqi army who were fired by Bremer/Cheney-Bush.

[kentuck]

8. But why do we not hear this discussed?

Does it have anything to do with the fact that it was a Republican responsibility?

[brush]

9. Bingo! nt