after saddam was toppled with ease, the pentagon and the white house advocated for maximum de-baathification, from the top rungs down to the lowest. keep in mind the baath party at its lowest estimates had 1-2 million members, and every remotely skilled person in iraq was a member because if you didn't join the party you didn't advance in your career as a teacher/scientist/civil servant so this would not just put an absurd amount of people out of work, but it would cripple iraq's infrastructure even worse than it already was, because all the people who knew how to keep the country running were now banned from a job. the state department and the cia, on the other hand, wanted just the top rungs of the baathist party and the ones that had done something criminal expelled from the workforce unfortunately, the pentagon won the debate, and not long after they also dissolved the iraqi army, which was pretty much neutral during the invasion. everyone in iraq knew it was just the ultraloyal republican guard that cared enough about saddam to fight for him, so a majority of the army just fled their bases and went home to their families once the americans arrived.  after saddam fell, they expected americans to take over the army, but instead they were all fired and told to apply for a job if they wanted back in, which is basically a middle finger.  needless to say, laying off hundreds of thousands militarily trained men, most of whom didn't care for saddam, was not a good idea these two blunders, de-baathification and dissolving the army, laid the foundation for the insurgency that came after
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