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"Some in America . speak of setting timetables for the withdrawal of our forces. This would be an historic mistake. Withdrawing our troops before Iraqis can defend themselves would endanger American security by encouraging more terrorism. It would betray the democratic government of Iraq and dishonor the sacrifices of American service men and women. All the audiences to the ongoing drama in Iraq-the Iraqi people, the American people, and terrorists everywhere-must understand that our objective in Iraq is victory and that we will do whatever is necessary to prevail." So opined L. Paul Bremer III in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal (June 15, 2006).

Bremer, a career Foreign Service diplomat, served as presidential envoy to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, when Iraq regained limited sovereignty. Bremer, whose official title was director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, replaced the much-criticized Jay Garner, the retired general who served as the first U.S. proconsul to post-invasion Iraq. 1 Bremer will likely be remembered for the moment, on December 13, 2003, when he announced to the world the capture of Saddam Hussein: "Ladies and gentleman, we got him!"

Bremer currently serves as advisory board chairman of Global Secure Corporation, whose mission is "to secure the homeland with integrated products and services for the critical incident response community worldwide, focusing on prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery." 2 He also keeps busy undertaking speaking tours and serving as a commentator on terrorism and other issues.

Bremer made headlines in October 2004 when, during a talk at a private resort in West Virginia, he suggested that the violence in post-invasion Iraq could have been contained if more troops had been committed. The talk, which occurred during the run-up to the 2004 elections and was widely quoted by supporters of John Kerry, prompted Condoleezza Rice and other White House staff to call Bremer and ask for clarifications. Trying to put the issue to rest, Bremer wrote an equivocal op-ed in the October 8, 2004 New York Times, entitled "What I Really Said:" "In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to undermine President Bush's Iraq policy. This effort won't succeed. Let me explain why. It's no secret that during my time in Iraq I had tactical disagreements with others, including military commanders on the ground. Such disagreements among individuals of good will happen all the time, particularly in war and postwar situations. I believe it would have been helpful to have had more troops early on to stop the looting that did so much damage to Iraq's already decrepit infrastructure. The military commanders believed we had enough American troops in Iraq and that having a larger American military presence would have been counterproductive because it would have alienated Iraqis. That was a reasonable point of view, and it may have been right. The truth is that we'll never know."

More recently, in a June 11, 2006 interview with George Stephanopolous of ABC News about the killing of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, Bremer reiterated his belief that there should be no deadline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. 3 His feeling that the United States was in it for the long haul appears to predate his tenure in Iraq. At a gathering of business leaders in Cincinnati shortly before the U.S. invasion, Bremer said: "We're going to be on the ground in Iraq as soldiers and citizens for years. We're going to be running a colony almost." 4

Bremer's 2006 memoir, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (co-authored with Malcolm McConnell), recounts his experiences with the Coalition Provisional Authority. The book has been both criticized and lauded. In it, Bremer describes his doubts concerning the Bush administration's decision to limit the number of troops in Iraq, yet provides little insight into why he remained silent about his concerns at the time. He also provides previously unknown details about negotiations with Iraqi religious authorities over the country's interim constitution as well as efforts to help bring about elections. Opined New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, "Sadly, it's a measure of Bremer's book that the best parts are those that involve events he writes least about. And this memoir is also emblematic of Bremer's tenure as the chief of the American occupation. For 14 months, he presided over an enterprise that, for all its energy, often seemed more about press conferences staged inside the Green Zone than the dangerous and uncertain reality outside" (February 26, 2006).

The Financial Times was a bit more scathing: "If by some quirk or cataclysm of history the main source of information about what happened in Iraq in 2003-2004 turns out to be this memoir by L. Paul Bremer III, future generations would surely get the impression that this U.S. occupation of part of the Arab heartland, if not quite a smashing success, had by dint of Ambassador Bremer's skill and perseverance set Iraqis firmly on the road to freedom" (February 4, 2006).

Pointing to failings in Bremer's tenure in Iraq, including most notably the legacy of a severely divided country, the Financial Times concludes: "Quite why Washington parachuted a former ambassador to the Netherlands-an unknown unknown outside the Beltway-into this chaos remains unclear. True, Bremer had been an ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism. But his viceroyship in Baghdad, if anything, showed a gift for stoking rather than countering it. His first edicts as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded the army, a measure that left 400,000 men destitute and angry, but armed and trained-easy prey to the insurgency then taking shape."

Commentator Bill Berkowitz offered a few reasons for why Bremer may have landed the job in Iraq: "Bremer is a consummate insider with roots in several presidential administrations: During his 23-year diplomatic service career, he was stationed in Afghanistan, Malawi, Norway, and also served as ambassador to the Netherlands. In 1989 he joined the powerful New York-based Kissinger Associates, and in late 2001, along with former Attorney General Edwin Meese, he co-chaired the Heritage Foundation's Homeland Security Task Force, which created a blueprint for the White House's Department of Homeland Security. For two decades Bremer has been a regular at congressional hearings and is recognized as an expert on terrorism and homeland security." 5

The Washington Post described Bremer as "a hard-nosed hawk who is close to the neoconservative wing in the Pentagon" (May 2, 2003). At the time of his appointment to Iraq, his supporters included Donald Rumsfeld and then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz. Before his stint in the Middle East, Bremer served as an adviser to Americans for Victory over Terrorism, an advocacy group established in 2002 by William Bennett and several other foreign policy hardliners "to defend America's war on terrorism against those who would weaken the nation's resolve and erode our commitment to end the international menace of terrorism."

The ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation's Homeland Security Task Force (co-chaired by Bremer) was initiated a few days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Its report, "Defending the American Homeland," was published in January 2002. Although some of the recommendations were reasonable, including ways to improve the nation's ability to respond to a bioterror attack, the report used 9/11 as an excuse to push for defense programs that could have little impact on the type of attacks perpetrated in New York and Washington. Such programs included the deployment of a national missile defense system, long a key item on the agenda of administration hawks Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld. 6