Bush's War and Bremmer's Memory

One of the things my wife found hardest to believe in the Frontline show was L. Paul Bremmer's faulty memory. When he arrived in Baghdad, he had instructions from Douglas Feith to throw all members of the Baath party out of the Iraqi government. Retired General Jay Garner and a senior CIA agent advised him not to do this arguing that that it would immediately drive 30,000-50,000 Baathists underground where they would be a threat to Bremmer's efforts to restore order. My wife didn't buy Bremmer's claim that he was so busy working twenty hours a day that he could not recall the discussion of such an important matter.

I did not find Bremmer's memory lapse quite so unbelievable. After all, ten hours out of every twenty-hour day was probably spent ignoring the advice of people who knew a lot more than he did. You cannot expect him to remember all the advice he ignored especially when he wasn't paying attention in the first place.