Word: bremer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...terrorists' ability to blow up markets in Baghdad, but it hasn't yet. As I reported in September 2005, there is also the scandalous reality that an alliance with the tribes was proposed by U.S. Army intelligence officers as early as October 2003 and rejected by L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority on the grounds that "tribes are part of the past. They have no place in the new democratic Iraq." The damage caused by that myopic stupidity may never be repaired: it gave al-Qaeda a base in the Sunni tribal areas, which enabled the sustained, spectacular anti...
...Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the overall prison commander, and to staff officers attached to the office of Lieut. General Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad. In February, after more prisoner interviews, Red Cross officials sent a comprehensive report directly to the staffs of Sanchez and L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority. Later that month, Gassman met with Bremer and Sanchez. Gassman says he had the impression that the officials were aware of the allegations of prison abuses before he entered the room...
They were. For months Bremer's authority had been hearing complaints from released prisoners and families of those still in detention. The State Department knew enough to realize, says a senior official, "this was going to be a problem." Aides to Bremer and Secretary of State Colin Powell say that as early as last fall, both men raised the issue in meetings with the rest of the Administration's national-security team. Yet no action was taken until mid-January, when Specialist Joseph Darby, a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, got hold of some of the incriminating photographs...
...before Thanksgiving. Blackwill asked [CIA Iraq mission Manager Robert] Grenier to accompany him. On the way out, Grenier asked him, "What is your mandate?" Blackwill said that Rice had charged him with trying to bring about some changes and that he was going to have a "Socratic dialogue" with Bremer. Nobody wanted to give Bremer specific marching orders. According to Blackwill, Rice felt she could not order changes, but she wanted Blackwill to lead Bremer in the direction they thought they needed...
...decided on. In this case, however, the NSC did not fulfill its role. The NSC avoided slamming on the brakes to force the discussions with the Pentagon and everyone else that was required in the face of a deteriorating situation. By sending Bob Blackwill out to chat with Bremer, NSC substituted a time-tested process for one almost guaranteed to fail...