May 9, 2003: US Officials Meet with Former Iraqi Officer to Discuss Security Plan

In a CIA-arranged meeting at the Abu Ghraib palace, US officials meet with a former high-ranking Iraqi military officer named Faris Naima. He proposes that the US set up three military divisions in northern, central, and southern Iraq. Soldiers would be stationed in every major town to support the police. Claiming that there is a large number of possible military leaders who are not orthodox Baathists, he says the US should start at the top by forming an Iraqi Ministry of Defense and work their way down, all officers would be mandated to repudiate the Baathist Party. Naima also stresses the importance of paying the salaries of civil servants and declaring a plan for exiting the country so that Iraqis will not begin to view them as occupiers. [Gordon and Trainor, 3/14/2006, pp. 480]