Word: bremer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...last days, and outwardly at least he leaves as he arrived: cool, calm and collected. Meticulous in dress, he is articulate, strong willed, tireless in his work. Even his harshest critics give Paul Bremer all that. But next week, when he vacates his office at Baghdad's Republican Palace, from which he has essentially run Iraq, Bremer will depart with a diminished reputation. Blame for the failures of the occupation can be spread across the whole spectrum of the U.S. military and political leadership--from the Pentagon planners who ignored warnings of the chaos that would follow "liberation...
With the handover of power set for June 30, the troubles plaguing the U.S. venture in Iraq remain on harrowing display. In Baghdad, where Bremer's green zone headquarters sit cordoned off and isolated from the rest of the city ("like Xanadu," says a British official), a suicide bombing on Thursday killed 35 Iraqis and wounded at least 138. In all, car bombs killed nearly 90 throughout Iraq last week. For some, images of the continuing carnage, the failure to find illicit weapons and now the 9/11 commission's conclusion that Iraq did not aid al-Qaeda's attack...
...even as he prepares to exit, Bremer continues to stick to the script. "If you go back and look at what has been accomplished, I would say that we have [done] almost everything we set out to accomplish at liberation," he told TIME. "[President Bush and Prime Minister Blair] had a vision of an Iraq that was stable, pluralistic, democratic, at peace with itself--and we have accomplished most of that. There are still problems with security, of course, and I expect there will continue to be problems with security...
...Bremer prides himself on the cool, clinical approach he brings to managing the crises that have erupted on his watch. But his tendency to downplay the violence--and Iraqi frustration at the lack of progress toward stopping it--has made him increasingly irrelevant to the people he presides over. Iraqis generally seem to view Bremer as an aloof, remote figure. "He doesn't know us, and he doesn't want to know us,'' says Baghdad schoolteacher Kamel al-Hasni. Bremer says there is little he could have done to alter that perception and he doesn't particularly care about...
...facts on the ground in Iraq have changed so much that it's easy to forget that it wasn't always so dire. When Bremer arrived, in May 2003, the deadly insurgency inside Iraq had yet to begin in earnest. But chaos was mounting, as internecine violence surged, citizens began settling scores and looters took everything that wasn't bolted down. Bremer had all of 10 days' notice that the Administration wanted him to take over as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and it showed. A former adviser recalls being stunned when at an early-morning meeting...