Bremer Rules in Iraq: The Same Insider Network That First Built Up Saddam Hussein, and Then Used U.S. Military Power to Topple His Regime, Has Put One of Its Own in Charge of Rebuilding Iraq

Beginning of article

On June 29th, the guest on the BBC Sunday morning news program Breakfast With Frost could not have been more blunt:

   We are going to fight them and impose
   our will on them and we will
   capture or, if necessary, kill them until
   we have imposed law and order on
   this country.

The speaker was L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator of Iraq. Former Ambassador Bremer received his assignment on May 6th, when President Bush announced his appointment as "Presidential Envoy to Iraq" to serve as the senior coalition official in that sad and beleaguered nation. In that capacity, Bremer "will oversee Coalition reconstruction efforts and the process by which the Iraqi people build the institutions and governing structures that will guide their future," explained a White House press release. "Ambassador Bremer will report to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and will advise the President, through the Secretary, on policies designed to achieve American and Coalition goals for Iraq."

"American and Coalition goals for Iraq"? As decided by whom? The answer to that question lies in the usual Insider institutions with which the new overseer of Iraq is affiliated.

From 1989 through 2000, Bremer was the chief operating officer of Kissinger Associates (KA). A member of the Council on Foreign Relations …