Bremer, L. (Jerry) Paul

(1941- )

   Paul Bremer was the U.S. Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for postwar Iraq, replacing General Jay Garner as the effective U.S. proconsul in Iraq on 6 May 2003 and serving until limited Iraqi sovereignty was restored on 28 June 2004. As such, he has been assigned much of the blame for the insurgency in Iraq that resulted from his decisions to dissolve the Iraqi army and implement the "de-Baathification" of the Iraqi civil service. These two actions created a large pool of armed and disgruntled men who helped fuel the ensuing insurgency that almost tore Iraq apart. In all fairness, however, President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary for Policy in the Defense Department Douglas Feith, and others were equally to blame for what ensued due to their lack of postwar planning and abysmal ignorance of Iraq. Not only did Bremer share this ignorance of Iraq, but he also had never been there before, did not speak Arabic, had no experience in dealing with a country emerging from war, and had never been involved in nation building.

   Many Kurds felt that Bremer bullied them into accepting less than what they had previously enjoyed in the way of autonomy, such as the right to have their own military forces and control over the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) oil and border crossings. However, the Kurds never implemented the provisions of the Bremer-supported Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) on these points. After Bremer's premature departure, the Kurds won back in the new permanent Iraqi constitution most of the points Bremer previously had refused. Bremer published his experiences in Iraq in 2006 as My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope.