Baghdad was already a literal violent warzone. We had just invaded and they didn't want an occupying army there.

That is absolutely, 100%, not true. Barbra Bodine stated in "Iraq: No End in Sight," Baghdad had ~11 murders in their morgue each year. It was safe for foreigners to have coffee and walk out on the street. In the opening weeks of the invasion, there were over 30 murders per day.

It was under an autocratic fist. Speak against Saddam and go to jail .. but it was safe.

I'm saying that the US invading turned it into a warzone, not the removal of police.

They created a civil war where the only thing that nearly everyone agreed with was that the Americans should leave.

True. But I do think better planning and reconstruction efforts would have prevented the war zone. General Shinseki requested three times the number of troops that were deployed. They simply did not have enough to take an old Baghdad or much of Iraq.

That combined with turning away the local current military leadership that was volunteering to help, made it spiral way worse that it needed to.

Well that’s because the police became terrorists. And it was already literally a warzone.