The Pros and Cons of Dissolving the Army

"The big mistake that we made in Iraq in my view was what we did after the invasion," he says. "To this day it's not clear why that happened, in which meeting that was decided" The Pentagon is one thing that is good at having a lot of meetings; they have a lot of slide shows and slides on their computer screens to help them with decision-making. But when you dissolve 500,000 people who know how to use armed weapons? You don't even pay their salaries. People have respect in their communities. And all of a sudden, they can't support their families. They've lost their position in society."