| |
Shuffling the cards, once
again
By Andrew F Tully
WASHINGTON - United States President George W
Bush has decided to name a longtime State Department
official in charge of the transitional administration in
Iraq. L Paul Bremer - who was a senior aide to six
secretaries of state during a 23-year career at the
department - will rank above Jay Garner, the retired US
Army general who has been in charge of civil
administration since the fall of Saddam Hussein's
government.
Garner said in Baghdad that he
expects Bremer to arrive by next week and take charge of
the political process in postwar Iraq. He said a
"dedicated effort" is needed on the political side and
that the appointment of someone like Bremer had been
planned all along. Garner is expected to focus more on
reconstruction issues.
Many of Bush's critics
have complained that the US Defense Department, which is
running Iraq for the time being, has put too much of a
military stamp on the administration. They say that
Garner, who was a career army officer, epitomizes this.
Some say that the appointment of Bremer, who has
had a distinguished civilian career, is an effort to
answer those critics. Others say his nomination is
evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell has
successfully reasserted his right to conduct the
country's foreign policy at a time when Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seemed to be challenging it.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign affairs analyst
at the Cato Institute, a private policy research
institute in Washington, told RFE/RL that Bremer's
appointment shows that Powell might be the most
resilient official in the Bush administration.
Carpenter said that Bremer's close association
with the State Department shows Powell's influence in
deciding who will be in charge of administering Iraq
until Iraqis can choose their own government.
Previously, Carpenter said, Bush administration
officials like Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney
were initially more influential with the president on
matters like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the North
Korea nuclear crisis, and whether to seek the United
Nations' approval for a war in Iraq.
Ordinarily,
such matters would be the province of the secretary of
state. But in these and other cases, according to
Carpenter, Powell managed to reassert his primacy, and
has done so in this case, too. "This is typical Powell.
He never gives up. Even when it appears that he is
defeated, he's always back, maneuvering, attempting to
regain position. Powell, sooner or later, ends up in a
significant and influential position on almost every
policy issue," Carpenter said.
Although Bremer
is most closely associated with the State Department, he
will report directly to Rumsfeld, just as Garner now
does. But Carpenter said he believes anything Bremer
says to the defense secretary will be heard
simultaneously by the secretary of state. "I would
venture to guess that, even though [Bremer] might
officially be reporting to Rumsfeld, Powell is not going
to be unaware of his conclusions and recommendations. I
suspect there will be, whether officially or not, a dual
reporting system," Carpenter said.
This,
Carpenter suggested, will give Powell equal influence
with Rumsfeld in how Iraq is administered. Carpenter
said it is too early to say whether Bremer is a good
choice to direct the interim Iraq administration. He
said much depends on whether he and Garner will get
along. If they have differences, and if these
differences descend into feuding, Carpenter warned, the
delicate job of guiding Iraq toward democracy could be
complicated further.
According to another
analyst, it is too early to deduce anything from
Bremer's reported appointment. Leon Fuerth, who served
as national security adviser to Al Gore when he was vice
president under Bill Clinton, Bush's predecessor, said
Bremer's long State Department career may have no
bearing on whether Powell or Rumsfeld influences the
reconstruction of Iraq and its move toward democracy.
"Does the fact that [Bremer] once had a career
in the State Department, but no longer does, mean that
the State Department is in the driver's seat? I don't
think so, not if he's reporting to Secretary Rumsfeld,"
Fuerth said.
Bremer has a reputation as a good
manager, both from his days as the senior assistant to
several secretaries of state and his work in the private
sector. Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of
state under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
during the 1970s, made Bremer the managing director of
the consulting firm Kissinger Associates Incorporated.
Bremer served in that position for a decade.
According to Fuerth, the best clue to Bremer's
allegiance - and to his independence - is whom he picks
as his staff in Iraq, and whether he needs anyone's
permission to appoint senior aides. "A lot remains to be
seen here in terms of the kind of apparatus that
[Bremer] sets up to function as his staff. If he draws
that apparatus entirely out of the Department of
Defense, or if the only way it gets set up is if
Secretary Rumsfeld blesses it, then I don't think this
appointment means that there's been a shift of power,"
Fuerth said.
Fuerth - now a professor of
international affairs at George Washington University -
was asked if choosing Bremer is simply a public
relations effort by the Bush administration to allay
fears that it is relying too much on the US military to
conduct the country's foreign policy. Fuerth replied
that, whatever Bremer's allegiances, he is likely an
able man who will put an important civilian imprint on
the administration of a country that has suffered three
decades of dictatorship.
"I'll assume that they
picked a guy who can do the job. So it's not, strictly
speaking, PR, I think it may be also an important
affirmation of the principle of civilian control in
political matters," Fuerth said.
Bremer began
his State Department career in the 1960s and served in
many foreign assignments, where he honed his expertise
on the subject of terrorism. In the mid-1990s, he urged
Bill Clinton to act more forcefully against states such
as Syria and Iran, which the US government says are
sponsors of terrorism.
In 1999, Congress named
him chairman of the influential National Terrorism
Commission. In that capacity, he repeatedly warned
Americans that they faced a tangible threat of
catastrophic terrorist attacks. His appointment to that
position came fully two years before the attacks of
September 11, 2001.
Copyright (c) 2002,
RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
