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Figure 1.
 
Provincial Map of Iraq
39 
The lack of focus on post-conflict operations was evident in the under-funded and 
under-equipped Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), led by 
retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, which was established to “manage postwar 
reconstruction, governance, and assistance in Iraq.”
40
Created and funded by the 
Department of Defense in January 2003, ORHA was composed of Iraqi exiles and 
opponents of the Saddam Hussein regime. It was intended to “re-establish law and order, 
basic services and some form of governance.”
41
The tactical military strategy was to pass 
the torch of responsibility to civilian agencies that specialized in post-conflict operations, 
including OHRA and a newly elected Iraqi government. Major General David Petraeus, 
commander of the 101
st
Airborne division who was responsible for most of Northern Iraq 
39
John Pike, "Global Security.Org Maps of Iraq," Global Security, 
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/maps.htm (accessed January 4, 2008). 
40
Kirsten Lundberg, The Accidental Statesmen: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq 
(Cambridge, MA: Case Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University,[2006]). 
41
Ahmed Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 
2006), 292. 

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stated that he “had a sense that ORHA, working together with Iraqi exiles and Iraqis who 
would be on the job, would probably take the lead” and that the U.S. military would assume 
more of a supporting role.42 However ORHA was able to accomplish little more than 
damage assessments as large areas of Iraq plummeted into chaos. ORHA had not prepared 
for the scenario that was playing out in Iraq and thus had no contingency plans ready to deal 
with such widespread looting, vandalism, and organized crime. The 600-800 ORHA staff 
stationed in Baghdad was driven by competing political agendas, which led to sub par work 
and refusal to remove themselves from Saddam’s palaces and communicate with the local 
population. ORHA’s “planning was ragged and execution was worse.”43 Personnel 
limitations and location also were a problem. The ORHA North office was staffed by only 
ten personnel safely located in Irbil, in the Kurdish zone, which was too far away from other 
northern Iraqi cities such as Mosul, where reconstruction assistance was desperately 
needed.44 ORHA’s shortcomings were not all of its own making. It had less than three 
months from its inception to plan and prepare for post-conflict nation-building whereas 
planning for post-conflict administration after World War II took two and a half years.45 In 
July 2003, ORHA was replaced with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) led by L. 
Paul Bremer, which was designed to “exercise executive, legislative, and judicial powers 
while rebuilding the state’s infrastructure and beginning the job of reconstruction.”46 On 
July 13, 2003, the CPA established the Interim Governing Council, an appointed body of 
Iraqis that was to “consult and advise [Bremer] on all matters relating to the temporary 
governance of Iraq.”47 However, by then reservations in Sunni and Shia communities about 
U.S. employment of what appeared to be a combat-oriented strategy in response to ORHA 
failures had begun to foment.
42
Lundberg, The Accidental Statesmen: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq, 7. 
43
Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 294-295. 
44
Lundberg, The Accidental Statesmen: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq, 8. 
45
Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 294. 
46
Hashim, 18. 
47
Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 18. 

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