http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/28/chilcot-inquiry-iraqi-army-bremer

"I would like to set the record straight on the decision about the Iraqi army," Bremer, who was head of the CPA from May 2003 to June 2004, told the inquiry.

"For more than three decades Saddam had used that army as an essential element of his brutal repression and terror against the Iraqi people. When it became clear that Iraq was losing the war, this army had 'self-demobilised'. Shia draftees by the thousands deserted their posts and went back to their villages, farms and families."
Most of the Iraqi army had already gone home and they would not voluntarily return to serve under "brutal" Sunni officers, he said.
But his most sensitive comments referred to discussions held in London . "American officials recognised that any pre-war plan to make use of the old army had been rendered irrelevant by facts on the ground," Bremer stated.
"On his way to Baghdad on May 13 and 14 2003 [a CPA official] briefed senior British officials in London on the plans.
"His British interlocutors recognised that demobilisation was a fait accompli. None of them expressed the view that the coalition should instead try to recall the Iraqi army. In fact, Slocombe reported that the British officials agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector."
Bremer admitted that ex-Iraqi soldiers had caused trouble for the occupying coalition forces. "No doubt some members of the former army may have subsequently joined the insurgency," he said.
"But if they did so, for most of them it was not because they had been denied an opportunity to serve their country again or otherwise to live on their pensions. It was because they wanted to install a Baathist dictatorship."