In my view, much of the blame that later fell on Sanchez was misplaced. To be sure, there were failures on his watch, but much of the responsibility belonged to his superiors in the Army and the senior leadership of the Department.
In late April 2003, we also faced an unexpected personnel move at CENTCOM headquarters: General Franks announced his plans to retire. For the past two of his three years at the post, Franks had spent his days and nights planning two demanding military campaigns, and he was anxious to step down. I asked him to stay to oversee the transition of power to an Iraqi authority, but he insisted on departing. I was disappointed to have a leadership transition at such a critical time.
Franks’ position as combatant commander at CENTCOM was assumed by his deputy, General John Abizaid. The son of an Arab American Navy veteran of World War II, Abizaid graduated from West Point, earned a scholarship that allowed him to study Arabic in Jordan, and later completed a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies at Harvard. Cerebral in demeanor and strategic in thinking, Abizaid embodied military, regional, and linguistic expertise.
As commander of CENTCOM, Franks had established and assumed responsibility for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), with Jay Garner reporting to him. I had advised Garner before he took the post at ORHA that, as circumstances evolved, the top civilian post in Iraq would likely be assumed by a senior official from the State Department.
In early May, the President announced the selection of former Ambassador L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer to replace Garner. Though Garner was disappointed that his tour was ending sooner than expected, he had done his job well and had formed a good working relationship with emerging Iraqi leaders, who he had assured would soon be leading the Iraqi Interim Authority.* Garner was pushing for a swift transition to the Iraqis—a policy I agreed with but about which Rice and perhaps the President himself seemed to have developed second thoughts. The interdepartmental policy differences that had not been decisively resolved came to the surface. The way the Bremer selection was handled added another layer of difficulty.
“The choice of Mr. Bremer is a victory for the State Department over the Pentagon,” the New York Times promptly announced.19 “Some administration officials were so concerned that the move not look like a setback for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that they were considering having him announce it upon his return from Baghdad on Friday night, to make it look like a Pentagon initiative.”20
I didn’t know who “some administration officials” were, but from the Pentagon it looked like Deputy Secretary of State Armitage was again feeding the press his version of events. His leaks were so brazen that I finally mentioned them to Powell. “Colin, we have a problem,” I said in one such conversation on March 31, 2003. “Rich Armitage has been badmouthing the Pentagon all over town. It’s been going on for some time and it’s only gotten worse.”21
I asked Powell to try to manage his deputy. The President was facing rearguard disloyalty from a small band of “senior State Department officials” who were attacking the administration and the effort in Iraq in the press as anonymous sources.*
“I don’t know what the hell is in Armitage’s craw,” I told Powell, “but I’m tired of it.”23 Powell told me he would look into it. He expressed concerns about Wolfowitz, whom Powell claimed was leaking against him. I didn’t believe that was true. I made a point of repeatedly telling those I worked with at the Pentagon not to speak to the press against State, the CIA, the White House, or any members of the administration—no matter how strong the temptation. “If you’ve got a problem,” I told senior Pentagon staff, “come and see me.”24
Several months later the subject of leaking came up in a meeting with the President and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card in the Oval Office. Most of it was routine business—senior military nominations, an update on operations in Iraq, and preparations for our meeting later that morning with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. As the meeting closed, Bush raised the issues between the State and Defense Departments that were being leaked to the media.
“The controversy between DoD and State is hurting. It needs to stop,” the President said.25 I couldn’t have agreed more. It was what I had been counseling for over a year. The problem was that he was talking to the wrong person.
“Mr. President, I have repeatedly told my folks never to leak or trash their colleagues. All the evidence suggests that it is State that is trashing us. If anyone has any information that my folks at DoD are leaking anything or trashing anyone, tell me.”
Card interjected, “That’s what they say at State.”
“Look Andy, if it’s going both ways, I need to see evidence,” I responded.
The meeting left a sour taste in my mouth. The truth was that there weren’t stories in the newspapers about Defense officials anonymously criticizing their counterparts in the State Department.
The next day the President called me. “I’ve got great confidence in you and what your team at DoD is doing. I didn’t mean to send the wrong signal. You’re doing a fabulous job.”
“I appreciate the call, Mr. President. I may have taken yesterday’s meeting amiss, but if you feel there’s a war between the State and Defense Departments, it takes two to fight, and DoD isn’t fighting. What is happening is hurting you. If it gets to a point where the solution is for me to leave, I will do so in a second.”
“That’s a crappy solution,” Bush responded.
“It’s certainly not my first choice, but we need you in the White House, and if my leaving would help, I’m ready.”
Then Bush added, “I’m working hard on Powell and Armitage. I’ve seen the recent articles and I know what’s going on.”26
In fact, the selection of Bremer was not a triumph of State over Defense. I believe I may have been one of the first to include his name on a list of possible candidates for the post.* Bremer came to my attention for a possible senior diplomatic job in a discussion I had with George Shultz soon after I returned to the Pentagon in 2001. He recommended Bremer along with several others for presidential envoy slots, if and when the need arose, in much the same way Shultz had recommended me to President Reagan as an envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty and later to the Middle East. I liked the idea of having the presidential envoy in Iraq be one with ties to the State Department, since State’s involvement was badly needed. The Defense Department could not perform all or even most of the nonmilitary tasks that needed to be done. For postwar stabilization and reconstruction to be successful, it would take leadership and resources from State and other cabinet departments, as well as from coalition nations. I also liked that Bremer was considered an action-oriented executive, able to get things done.
Because Bush had placed the Defense Department in charge of Bremer and postcombat stability operations, Bremer met with me prior to his departure to discuss a rough road map and guidelines. Our discussion was based on a DoD memo titled “Principles for Iraq—Policy Guidelines,” which had twenty-six guidelines I had vetted with others in the Pentagon, the State Department, and the NSC. Our May 13 memo did not lay out the details or exact timing of the way forward. I understood that Bremer would need flexibility to respond to the circumstances he found. But I had no reason to think that Bremer had any doubts about the advisability of the policy that President Bush had approved before the war: the development of the Iraqi Interim Authority, with the goal that it would exercise substantial authority as soon as possible.
Bremer’s mandate was to make the memo’s twenty-six principles operational. We had no illusions that the coalition would be able to withdraw if Iraq collapsed into chaos. “Without security for the Iraqi people,” I wrote, “none of their goals will be achievable.” But, I stressed the importance of handing over responsibilities to the Iraqis.
In staffing ministries and positioning Iraqis in ways that will increase their influence, the Coalition will work to have acceptable Iraqis involved as early as possible, so Iraqi voices can explain the goals and direction to t
he Iraqi people. Only if Iraqis are seen as being engaged in, responsible for, and explaining and leading their fellow citizens will broad public support develop that is essential for security.28
At the Department of Defense we recognized that some of the aspiring Iraqi leaders would fail to meet our standards for good governance and efficiency. There were precious few Mr. Smiths (as in the Jimmy Stewart movie) in the world. But it was of paramount importance that U.S. officials should take advantage of every opportunity to increase the influence of well-intentioned Iraqi leaders and begin to give them control of their country.
Bremer and I discussed the need to work closely together. I had decided I would give him considerable latitude for decision making, since he was the man on the ground. Bremer, however, had a robust definition of the term “latitude.” When I was a special envoy for President Reagan, I only reported through Secretary of State Shultz. It seemed appropriate that I report directly through the cabinet officer who had the day-to-day responsibility to manage the issues on which I was focused. Even with the title of “presidential” envoy, I never sought and rarely had direct interactions with the President. It did not occur to me to try to bypass the secretary of state and go directly to President Reagan, nor would I deal directly with any other cabinet officials without first engaging my direct supervisor, who, in my case, was Shultz.
Bremer had a totally different approach. He assumed that he had direct access to President Bush from the start. The President and Rice both not only accepted but facilitated Bremer’s unfiltered contact with them. On the same day that Bush announced Bremer’s appointment, May 6, 2003, they had a private lunch. I made a note to myself at the time: “POTUS had lunch with him alone—shouldn’t have done so. POTUS linked him to the White House instead of to DoD or DoS [State].”29
The President could of course have lunch with whomever he wanted. But in Bremer’s case, such actions contributed to a confused chain of command. This imprecision damaged Washington’s communications with the CPA throughout the period of Bremer’s tenure.
It became clear that Bremer intended to not be exclusively connected to any cabinet official. Bremer later wrote that after one of his private meetings with President Bush, “[Bush’s] message was clear. I was neither Rumsfeld’s nor Powell’s man. I was the president’s man.”30 He quickly established active relationships with Rice, Powell, and, as a career Foreign Service officer, his former colleagues in the State Department. Certainly it was desirable that the CPA have good ties to the political and diplomatic apparatus of the Bush administration, given the nature of its responsibilities in Iraq. I did not discourage that. What developed, though, was something I had not anticipated. Bremer was able to pick and choose the members of the NSC he would deal with on any particular issue, the result often being that the other members were left in the dark. The muddled lines of authority meant that there was no single individual in control of or responsible for Bremer’s work. There were far too many hands on the steering wheel, which, in my view, was a formula for running the truck into a ditch.
CHAPTER 36
Too Many Hands on the Steering Wheel
Upon his arrival in Baghdad on May 11, the press labeled Ambassador Bremer as America’s “viceroy” in Iraq. He seemed to embrace the idea with relish. Bremer believed, as he wrote in his memoir, that his assignment “combine[d] some of the vice-regal responsibilities of General Douglas MacArthur, de facto ruler of Imperial Japan after World War II, and of General Lucius Clay, who led the American occupation of defeated Nazi Germany.” The difference, Bremer contended, was that his job was even more challenging than theirs had been.* I had no idea that he would see himself this way. It certainly was not a mindset conducive to working with proud and wary Iraqis or with the large American military contingent in the country. Perhaps unavoidable but adding to the unfortunate imagery was the fact that Bremer’s offices were in one of Saddam’s grand palaces. Its many marble rooms, filled with opulent murals and statues, offered a grotesque glimpse of the Iraqi dictatorship. Paintings and inscriptions glorified the Iraqi regime. At least one of the sayings etched in Arabic on the ceiling was of dubious provenance: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country—Saddam Hussein.”2
Though I would have entered Iraq with a notably different mindset had I been in Bremer’s shoes, I wasn’t in his shoes. To his credit, he put his own life on hold to work long days in punishing heat. Every day Coalition Provisional Authority officials went to work on behalf of their country. That took courage and a sense of duty. In later years, Bremer and his team, along with the Department of Defense, would be subjected to criticism for employing young, seemingly underqualified staffers in jobs critical to helping establish a postwar Iraqi society. What is often neglected in those critiques, however, was that the CPA was chronically short of staff. There was not a long line of seasoned volunteers to take on the challenges and frustrations that Bremer and the others withstood.
At the Pentagon, I established a special office, headed by former Wall Street banker Reuben Jeffery and retired Army colonel Jim O’Beirne, to support Bremer and reduce the paperwork and logistics challenges that would otherwise consume the CPA’s time. A large number of Pentagon officials—military and civilian—volunteered to go over to Iraq to help. Unfortunately that esprit de corps was not widely found in other cabinet departments. The Department of State, outfitted with large numbers of experts in diplomacy and foreign affairs, provided two hundred names of would-be recruits. But when Jeffery and his team began contacting them, most demurred, many saying that their spouses or families didn’t want them going to Iraq.3 Overall, the State Department was filling less than 40 percent of the slots it was slated to fill on the governance teams.4 One State official later admitted their attitude: “Let’s see what impediments we can put in their way. Let’s see how long we can be in delivering this particular commodity or individual or amount of expertise. Let’s see how long we can stiff ’em.”5 I asked the director of administration at the Pentagon, Raymond DuBois, to coordinate financial and personnel support to the CPA. He became so frustrated with State’s lack of cooperation that he personally canvassed the retired Foreign Service officer community for volunteers.6
In order to get up to speed, I encouraged Bremer to work closely with Garner. I hoped he could take advantage of Garner’s knowledge of Iraq and its emerging leadership. I had also asked my special assistant, Larry Di Rita, whom I had sent to Kuwait to help Garner stand up ORHA several months earlier, to stay on in Baghdad to help bring Bremer up to speed. A sharp and gregarious formal naval officer, Di Rita could help to impose structure and order into what was bound to be a challenging start for the CPA. But Bremer seemed not to want much assistance from those who had been engaged in Iraq before he arrived. He was eager to send Garner back to America and excluded him from key meetings during their transition.
Bremer’s relationship with Sanchez was also apparently strained from the start, perhaps because Bremer thought he needed to establish control of Iraq and not yield authority to the military.* I was concerned that Bremer refused to meet with the four-star commander of Joint Forces Command, Admiral Ed Giambastiani, when he was in Iraq working on a lessons-learned project, which proved to be a valuable assessment of what actually took place in the days after Saddam’s ouster.7
Most troubling was that Bremer proved reluctant to cede any significant authority to the Iraqis. In his memoir he noted that several weeks before he arrived in Baghdad he heard on the radio that “Jay Garner had announced his intention to appoint an Iraqi government by May 15.” Upon hearing the news, Bremer wrote, “I almost drove off the George Washington Parkway.”8 Garner’s plan, in fact, would have consisted of a group of Iraqis advising the CPA, not a total handover of authority. Through political conferences in the Iraqi cities of Nasiriyah and Baghdad, Garner had skillfully cultivated leaders for the new Iraq, among internals as well as externals. He also had ensured there was an Iraqi presence in
each of the country’s twenty-three ministries.9 When Bremer departed for Baghdad, I believed he would work with Garner to build on his momentum by creating an Iraqi transitional government. It took months before I realized that this was not what Bremer had in mind.
At the State Department’s insistence, I reluctantly had agreed to a month or so delay in implementing the Iraqi Interim Authority when the policy was established in March. I agreed that Bremer needed a chance to find his footing in Baghdad. But Bremer wanted to delay implementation of the IIA and the creation of an independent Iraqi government possibly by years, and seemed to think he had the President’s support to do so. Bremer later wrote, “[T]he President’s instructions to me ... when I had lunch with him alone on May 6th, were that we’re going to take our time to get it right... . The President had effectively, though perhaps not formally, changed his position on the question of a short or long occupation, having before the war been in favor of a short occupation. By the time I came in, that was gone.”10 That would have been news to me, and I suspect it would also have come as news to the President. Bush, at least in my presence, never wavered in his desire to turn power over to the Iraqis as quickly as possible. Then again, he never firmly resisted the State Department’s efforts to slow the timeline either. This ambiguity may have been just enough for Bremer to decide he had Bush’s support for delay. In any event, Bremer certainly never discussed with me his perception that the President had decided on a significant reversal in his policy toward Iraq.
For at least the first month of his tenure, in fact, Bremer continued to report back to me and Defense officials that he was implementing the President’s plan to create an interim Iraqi government as soon as possible. In a June 2, 2003 memo, he wrote to me that in a meeting with Iraqi political leaders he “laid out our vision for establishing an interim administration (IA) in the next five to six weeks.”11 Seven days later I responded with a memo expressing my agreement with his plan and “the need to move quickly to create a leadership council for the Interim Administration.” I noted we were running out of time to put an Iraqi face on the CPA:
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