Bush's Iraq point man: ThePost.ie


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Bush's Iraq point man
Sunday, August 31, 2003

LPaulBremerIII By Tina-Marie O'Neill, World News Reporter

Name : L Paul Bremer III. Age: 61. Appearance : Has a clean-cut Kennedy clan look. Newsworthiness : Stuck between Iraq and a hard place.

With no experience in nation-building or much expertise in the Middle East, L Paul BremerIII, the United States civil administrator of Iraq, is an unlikely candidate for the job. Yet he's the most powerful man in Iraq - and perhaps the most influential American in the world right now.

To add further pressure to the prodigious task of imposing an American model of democracy on the Persian Gulf state, Bremer - Jerry to his friends - will be aware that US president George Bush's re-election chances may be riding on his success.

Largely unknown to the rest of the world before taking the reins in Iraq on May 12, Bremer is thought to have been selected to appease the State Department and the Pentagon, each with its own ideas about how postwar Iraq should be run. A professional diplomat for 25 years, the Connecticut native has friends in high places in the Pentagon, where he's liked for his conservatism.

A Yale and Harvard graduate, Bremer entered the diplomatic service after graduating from Harvard Business School in 1966 with a masters in business administration. He joined the diplomatic corps and served as executive assistant to six secretaries of state, embarking on a number of overseas missions as a political, economic and commercial officer to Afghanistan, Malawi and as deputy ambassador to Norway from 1976 to 1979.

US President Ronald Reagan appointed him US ambassador to the Netherlands from 1983 to 1986. Bremer reportedly helped persuade the Dutch government to allow US cruise missiles into the country, defying protestors.

Following that posting, Reagan brought Bremer home and appointed him the president's chief adviser on terrorism for the next three years, paving the path for his ultimate move to Iraq.

Three years later, Bremer entered the private sector to become managing director of strategic consultants Kissinger Associates, under his former boss, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

In 1999,the speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, appointed Bremer chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism with a mandate to review America's counter-terror ism policies. Bremer's June 2000 report would come to haunt Capitol Hill.

With grim prescience, he warned: "There's a chance terrorists will try to stage a catastrophic event in the United States in the future. Thousands of casualties would be the likely result."

Two days after the September 2001 attacks, in aWall Street Journal article, Bremer wrote: "This time the terrorists and their supporters must be crushed. But we must avoid a mindless search for an intentional `consensus' for our actions. Tomorrow, we will know who our true friends are."

Shortly afterwards, Bush appointed Bremer to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Last December, at a New Year's Eve seminar in Washington to discuss US efforts to respond to terrorism and deal with future threats, Bremer said: "This war cannot be won on the defensive. No matter how good we make our homeland security, there is virtually no way we can defend all of the targets that terrorists can come after. Wait and respond is no longer acceptable. We have to move from `wait and respond' to `detect and destroy'."

The vast array of potential targets in the US means that terrorists could seek a chink inUS security and launch a successful attack. He warned the administration that it had only one option.

"We have to go on the offensive.To be blunt, we have to kill the terrorists before they come here and kill us."

Years earlier, in a 1996 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Bremer addressed the Clinton administration in an article entitled `Terrorists' Friends Must Pay a Price'.

He called on theWhite House to "get serious about the fight on terrorism" and deliver ultimatums to Libya, Syria, Iran and Sudan to close down terrorist bases or expect to receive the "full weight of American might".The article would have further endeared him to the Republicans.

With his public career taking care of itself, the married father of two, who lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, moved to MMC (Marsh and McLennanCompanies) in 2000 to headthe company's political risk business.

The following year, Bremer was named chairman and chief executive of MMC's crisis consulting unit, helping corporate clients address business exposure to political risks and crises such as natural disasters and terrorism.

When news broke of Bremer's surprise appointment to Iraq,theWashington Post described him as "a hardnosed hawk, who is close to the neoconservative wing of the Pentagon". White House aides reportedly said the diplomat/businessman's appointment, supported by neoconservative hawks Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, affirmed Bush's satisfaction with Pentagon control over Iraq until a new government is established.

A former senior state department official who has worked with Bremer told Newsday: "He is a voracious opportunist with voracious ambitions. What he knows about Iraq could not quite fill a thimble.What he knows about any part of the world would not fill a thimble. But what he knows about Washington infighting could fill three or four bushel baskets."

Bremer was dispatched to Baghdad to head the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) on May 12, taking over from retired army general Jay Garnerlessthan two weeks after the declared end of major combat. According to Reuters, the CPA was seen as floundering and inept under Garner, who didn't travel much outside Baghdad and whose progress was deemed too slow.

The official CPA goal, echoing the vision of Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair, is to establish a free Iraq at peace with its neighbours and represented by a government chosen by democratic elections.

Bremer's immediate concerns were - and, frustratingly for him, still are - providing security and maintaining law and order. But it's proving to be an uphill struggle.

Dáily acts of sabotage on Iraqi infrastructure, attacks on coalition forces, a number of spectacular bombings - such as the suicide truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad two weeks ago - and growing frustration among ordinary Iraqis, has landed Bremer and the US military in a peace enforcement operation with which Americans are not entirely comfortable.

Taming Iraq is an unenviable task. The lack of UN approval and absence of public endorsement from any Arab government for the invasion resulted in the emergence of a sort of Islamist-jihad offensive on coalition forces.

According to Ehsan Ahrari, a US- based strategic analyst, US proclamations that they would transform the Middle East into their own image by planting democracy first in Iraq was taken by Islamists to be a conspiracy by a western Christian nation to impose its `cultural predilections' on Muslims.

The Islamists "will continue to do their best to prolong the delay in the emergence of any normalcy in Iraq," he said.

For his part, Bremer continues to talk tough. "When you make enemies of the US, you'd better watch out. Sooner or later, we'll get you," he said at a Baghdad press conference in June.

His first 14 weeks in Iraq have been eventful. Wearing dapper suits and his ubiquitous desert boots, the central architect of Iraq's political and economic future, based in Saddam's enormous Republican Palace on the banks of the Tigris River, made some bold first moves.

He has made the central bank independent, announced the phasing out of banknotes bearing Saddam Hussein's image, suspended import duties until 2004, set up a trade bank to manage Iraq's imports and exports, seized Ba'ath Party assets, banned heavy weapons and put out tenders for an airport operator and a telecoms provider.

A major milestone was selecting and establishing the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council on schedule in July, rejecting arguments from the Pentagon that authority should be handed over to returned exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi.

But the American-backed Governing Council - set up to help rule the country and oversee the drafting of a constitution until a democraticallyelected government can be established - is fighting for recognition throughout the Arab world.

Many radical Islamic factions, backed by neighbouring Iran, have been sidelined, confirming Arab views that the council is not a true representative of the Iraqi people.

Bremer told reporters in June: "This is going to be a long, difficult job. It's going to take a lot of patience. We will make mistakes. But as we make them, hopefully,we'll learn from them and adjust."

Bremer blundered within days of his arrival.On May 16 he moved to disband Iraq's armed forces, security services and defence and information ministries, effectively throwing 40,000 people out of work without pay. He had to move quickly to undo the damage. He introduced monthly stipends for all former army career officers and personnel except top-ranking Ba'ath officials.

The pressure on Bremer has been heightened by the lack of electricity, fresh water and security on Iraqi streets, coupled with fatal attacks such as the bombing of the Jordanian embassy, the UN bombing and news last week that the 141 US soldiers killed since May 1, had passed the total number of dead during the war.

In the aftermath of the UN attack, Bremer told reporters: "It is now unfortunately the case that Iraq has become one of the fields of battle in this global war."

The CPA claims that foreign fighters are now crossing the border into Iraq from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Pakistan, creating a rallying point for jihadis to wage war against the west.

Critics of the Bush administration claim there is little proof that foreign fighters are in Iraq.They say scapegoating al-Qaeda is convenient and ignores or downplays general Iraqi frustration with the coalition.

Bremer said last week that more troops would not prevent random acts of sabotage and terrorism. What was needed, he said, was more cooperation from the Iraqi people in gathering intelligence.

The diplomat has told reporters that he will need to request more money from Congress this autumn, a move that will damage the Bush administration's popularity at home.

The administration refuses to project how much the US occupation of Iraq will cost. That has prompted observers to estimate US defence department spending at anywhere between $100 billion and $600 billion over the next three years.

With an expanding federal budget deficit, which the White House projects will reach a record $445 billion this year, members of Congress are divided on how much the US should be forking out for the Iraqi campaign. They have publicly called on the Bush administration to swallow its pride and approach the international community for help.

ANewsweek magazine poll last week revealed that 69 per cent of Americans are concerned that the US will be bogged down in Iraq for many years without making much progress, compared with 28 per cent who are either not too concerned or not at all concerned.

US presidential elections are more than a year away, but Newsweek's presidential popularity poll, published last weekend,will concern theWhite House. The poll found that 49 per cent of registered voters would not want Bush reelected to a second term in office if elections were held now, compared with 44 per cent who would.

Yet the White House remains steadfast in its decision not to cede any military power to the UN, whose approval is needed before the international community will commit troops to Iraq. A compromise would ease US fiscal problems, benefiting Bush's image at home and easing pressure on US forces, who would be allowed take a break and travel home.

On top of the $4 billion a month cost of Iraqi operations, US forces stationed in Afghanistan cost $950 million a month.The US also has long-term commitments in South Korea and Kosovo, and recently deployed a small military unit to Liberia, all of which has led to criticism that US forces are spread too thin.

For now, Bremer has conceded that coalition forces will be needed in Iraq, possibly for years to come. But his time is running out.

If he fails to impose democracy and create a free market and peaceful Iraq soon, he and the Bush administration could be out of a job by November 2004.