American military commanders did not impose curfews, halt looting or order Iraqis back to work after Saddam Hussein's regime fell because U.S. policymakers were reluctant to declare U.S. troops an occupying force, says an internal Army review examined by The Associated Press.

As a result, the Bush administration's first steps at reconstruction in Iraq were severely hampered, creating a power vacuum that others quickly moved to fill, and a growing mistrust on the part of ordinary Iraqis, the report said.

Since those first days, the U.S. effort in Iraq has been hampered by a growing insurgency with persistent and deadly attacks against U.S. forces.

The review, a postwar self-evaluation by the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), said the political decision to call the U.S. forces that arrived in Baghdad "liberators" instead of "occupying forces" left the division's officers uncertain about their legal authority in postwar Baghdad and other cities. Under international law, the report says, the troops were indeed an occupation force and had both rights and responsibilities.

"Because of the refusal to acknowledge occupier status, commanders did not initially take measures available to occupying powers, such as imposing curfews, directing civilians to return to work, and controlling the local governments and populace. The failure to act after we displaced the regime created a power vacuum, which others immediately tried to fill," says the report.

The report, marked "For Official Use Only," was obtained by The Associated Press, the Washington security think tank Globalsecurity.Org and other outlets. A spokesman for the 3rd Infantry Division, Maj. Darryl Wright, characterized it as a candid effort to find ways to improve the division the next time it is called to fight. Its authors are not identified.

Wright said the final version was not complete. It reflects multiple, sometimes disparate, points of view from officers and troops who took part in the fighting, he said.

In many ways, it mirrors recent criticisms by Jay Garner, the retired American general who briefly headed the first occupation government in Iraq. Garner said in a BBC interview aired Wednesday that the military did not act quickly enough to restore law and order and key services in Baghdad, and should have tried harder to win support from the Iraqi people.

Between 12,000 and 15,000 3rd Infantry Division troops fought in Iraq, and 44 were killed in action, Wright said. The division, along with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, comprised the bulk of the ground advance north from Kuwait to Baghdad during late March and early April.

In the section regarding legal matters facing the division, the report said unidentified "higher officials" constrained the occupation effort and did not prepare for the fall of Saddam's government.

"Despite the virtual certainty that the military would accomplish the regime change, there was no plan for oversight and reconstruction, even after the division arrived in Baghdad," the report says. "State, Defense, and other relevant agencies must do a better and timelier job planning occupation governance and standing up a new Iraqi government."

The division confiscated $1 billion from palaces in Baghdad, but was not permitted to use that money to help the city on its feet, despite having the legal authority to do so, the report says.

"The money could have been used to hire, train, and equip the police force; clear the rubble from government buildings and city streets; hire sanitation workers and other municipal employees; clean up the courts and hire judicial personnel. ... At first, the people were anxious to get started and looked to the U.S. for assistance. They soon saw us as being unable or unwilling to get anything done," the report says.

The hunt for evidence of Saddam's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear programs — the Bush administration's key reason for going to war — also was problematic from the start, the report says.

"During the transition from combat operations to support and stability operations, we did not attempt to secure these key facilities before looting started," the report says. "The visible clues that may have provided a detailed analysis on WMD production, research and development, or storage were either destroyed or carried away by the local populace."

The report recommends troops be sent to quickly secure such sites during future conflicts.

The report does suggest the division had unprecedented battlefield coordination with special operations forces, the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) (referred to only as the "Other Government Agency") and "information operations" aimed at making Iraqi generals and troops switch sides or not fight.

But the results were a mixed bag.

"The use of e-mail to contact the generals urging them to surrender and contacting Iraqi governmental decision makers offering them deals to leave the country was a great idea in planning," the report says. "But the U.S. failed to understand the Iraqi government was based on Stalinism and the fear of reprisals was greater than they had anticipated."

Much of the intelligence on senior members of Saddam's regime targeted for capture came from walk-ins or casual relationships established by troops on the streets, the report says.

But sometimes division officers were left out of the loop.

"Open source reports suggested the President of the United States was receiving continuous reporting from a source with eyes on Saddam Hussein, assuring him that he was inside a building targeted for a strike," the report says. "That building was in the division's battlespace, however, information like this did not always reach the division staff level at a point where it could have contributed to the bigger picture intelligence assessment."

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