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Former Bush Iraq Chief to Face Nemesis?
It's a tenet of American justice that you have the right to face your accuser. But for several years, L. Paul Bremer -- the Bush administration's first point man in Iraq -- has avoided precisely that.
That may change in a couple weeks, in a hearing before the House Government Reform Committee, led by its new Democratic chairman Henry Waxman (CA).
During his time as head of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer was stalked by the United States' top fraud-buster in Iraq, Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The two were like the cartoon Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote: Bowen -- Mr. Coyote -- would come after Bremer with ever more devastating reports of fraud, mismanagement, abuse and utter chaos within Bremer's operations; yet Bremer had a road-runner-like ability to escape every time. Indeed, he walked away with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Department of Defense award for Distinguished Public Service, and even the Nixon Library's "Victory of Freedom Award."
Both men have testified before Congress, but never at the same hearing, a fact confirmed for me by Bowen's press aide, Christine Belisle. That could soon change: Waxman has "invited" the two men to testify at a Feb. 6 hearing on a lingering issue from Bremer's tenure: how nearly $9 billion in reconstruction funds went missing -- or in audit-speak, was "disbursed. . . without accountability."
Bowen's spokeswoman assures me the inspector general will testify at Waxman's hearing. Mr. Bremer? Are you ready for your close-up?
Update: We've tried to reach Bremer through his speaking agent. If we hear anything we'll let you know.
Comments (35)
Anonymous wrote on January 19, 2007 2:31 PM:Jay Garner was actually the first "Bush point man" in Baghdad.
Bob Woodward's book painstakingly details how Garner was recruited and then repeatedly railroaded by Don Rumsfeld.
Mrs Panstreppon wrote on January 19, 2007 2:41 PM:Best news I've heard all year! I hope Rep. Waxman makes Bremer explain in detail about how the $9 billion in cash was handled from the time it left the bank to the time it supposedly ended up in Iraqi hands. The money was dispensed over an eight-month period which works out to an average of about $275 million a week.
Step by step, I want to know who handled the money before it got to Iraq, who handled it in Iraq, who authorized disbursements, the names of the Iraqi recipients, how the money was transported from CPA headquarters to the Iraqi ministries, what paperwork was prepared, etc etc etc.
Why the missing $9 billion in cash is not at the top of everyone's list who is interested in what went wrong in Iraq is a mystery to me. That kind of money can fuel an insurgency for an extended period of time or fund Republican campaigns for the next three elections.
Bremer didn't get all those medals for nothing.
Anonymous wrote on January 19, 2007 2:44 PM:"...That kind of money can fuel an insurgency for an extended period of time or fund Republican campaigns for the next three elections..."
I bet that 22-year old Simone Leeden (daughter of Michael Leeden) came home with a suitcase full of CPA cash after her brief stint as Iraqi Minister of Oil or Energy or whatever role the Heritage Foundation recruited her for...
And promptly handed it over to the appropriate GOP authorities for safe keeping 'till 2008.
anon wrote on January 19, 2007 2:55 PM:Invite him first. If he doesn't show up, then subpoena him.
Diane wrote on January 19, 2007 3:12 PM:I hope he has to testify under oath!
Elvis Elvisberg wrote on January 19, 2007 3:39 PM:It is a shame that republicans let so many of their lying friends testify without being under oath so they did not not commit perjury.
Bremer was willing to criticize the Pentagon in the Frontline "Lost Year in Iraq" episode.
So along with accountability for his own mismanagement, he might show some fissures within the administration.
Vaughan wrote on January 19, 2007 3:55 PM:Please invite Dan Senor too! I have always suspected that that little gropenfuherer (as Paul Hacket called him to his face on Fox) got away with shady dealings there.
He really needs to be held account for all of that "unaccounted disbursement" too.
Please.
Richard L. Adlof wrote on January 19, 2007 4:11 PM:It is beginning to look a look a bit a lot like Fitz-mas (part 37) everyday for the next two years.
vicenzo wrote on January 19, 2007 4:16 PM:Heh heh heh heh.
I've been waiting for this.
**
Scene: House Office Building, hearing of the Government Reform Committee. Paul Bremer is nearly done testifying, when Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) looks up from his notes...
SCENE-
Bremer: And, with all of the pressures coming to bear on the administration of...
Waxman (interrupting): Mr. Bremer, what does the American Taxpayer look like?
Bremer: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman.. could you repeat the..
Waxman: What. Does. The. American. Taxpayer. Look. Like?
Bremer: I, what, I..?
Waxman (slamming stack of subpoenas with fist): WHAT AIN'T NO COUNTRY I HEARD OF! THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN WHAT?
Bremer: What, um, yes?
Waxman: Then you know what I'm saying?
Bremer: Yes.
Waxman (leaning forward): Does the American Taxpayer look like a B!&@h?
Bremer: What?
Waxman (enraged, throws thick subpoena at Bremer, knocking him in the head): DOES THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER LOOK LIKE A B!&@H, PAUL?
Bremer: Nooo! Of course not!
Waxman (waving hand and pointing): THEN WHY DID YOU TRY TO [BEEP] HIM LIKE A B!&@H, PAUL!!
Bremer: No, no I..
Waxman: YES YOU DID, PAUL, YES YOU DID!! YOU TRIED TO [BLEEP] HIM! And the American Taxpayer doesn't like to be [BLEEPED] by anyone except Ms. American Taxpayer!
(END SCENE)
John wrote on January 19, 2007 4:28 PM:John 2:12 'Behold a pale horse, and its rider's name was Waxman and he had unto him.....subpoena power.'
Paul in LA wrote on January 19, 2007 4:31 PM:Bremer's first two actions, CPA Order 1 & 2, deBaathified to four levels and disbanded the entire Iraqi security force (police and military), sending them home with their AK-47s.
In so doing, Bremer betrayed the overt Pentagon plan, which from the start was BASED on the idea that those forces would be available to stabilize the country. Thanks, Jerry!
In so doing, Bremer helped bring about what his boss Kissinger said in early 2004, to his Saudi clients: "There is no more Iraq. There will be three territories."
But the Pentagon already betrayed the troops by then -- having completely failed to guard the munitions dump at Al-Qaqaa, allowing 380 metric tons of high-explosives to fall into the hands of the insurgency. Gw and his SecDef wrote NO orders to guard that materiel -- even after in person briefings and warnings, and AlBaradei's report to the UNSC just before the illegal invasion.
Bushco supplied the high-explosives for the IEDs, and Bremer supplied the manpower to the insurgency.
Mission Accomplished.
Hank Essay wrote on January 19, 2007 4:36 PM:Well, well...it looks like winning elections does have consequences...
Bring it on!
Anonymous wrote on January 19, 2007 4:46 PM:--
Paul in LA wrote ---
"...Bremer's first two actions, CPA Order 1 & 2, deBaathified to four levels and disbanded the entire Iraqi security force (police and military), sending them home with their AK-47s.
In so doing, Bremer betrayed the overt Pentagon plan, which from the start was BASED on the idea that those forces would be available to stabilize the country. Thanks, Jerry..."
Not to give Woodward too much shrift, but his book details that Bremer received the deBaathification marching orders from Feith, Wolfowitz and company. Apparently Jay Garner was able to fight it during his short tenure, but the decision to upend the Pentagon's plan was caused by the NEOCONS at the Pentagon hammering through their agenda.
Bryan Nelson wrote on January 19, 2007 4:58 PM:So 'deal maker' Bremer has to show up to account for billions of missed placed money. Any bets on how badly the 'deal maker' wants to cut a deal with Waxman as to who he can take down with him?
Nine billion is just such an ugly amount of money to lose, even for wealthy Republicans.
Anonymous wrote on January 19, 2007 5:09 PM:Bremer was formerly employed by none other than
Kissinger Associates.
Why am I NOT surprised?
expatjourno wrote on January 19, 2007 5:30 PM:Disbanding the entire security force and leaving almost 400 tons of high explosives unguarded were not mistakes if your aim is to line the pockets of your cronies by creating a plausible justification for a long-term U.S. military presence. I'm sure Bushco would rather have kept the Democrats out of power, but that's nowhere near as important to them as raking in tens of billions of dollars.
Plus, even if the Democrats win the White House in 2008, it'll be one or two terms and out because their communications operation is so inept that they'll get blamed for "losing" a war in 2009 that was already lost by 2004. Given the disaster that is going to unfold for the Middle East, the U.S. and the world, we can count on the Republicans taking back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012 or 2016 and then being in power for several decades after that.
The Democratic Party is toast.
Dennis wrote on January 19, 2007 6:26 PM:When all is said and done, little will change.
What Americans don't understand is that these are not just one and two and three good ole boys doing the "mismanagement". It is an entire national and international network.
The players may not all know one another, but they all know how the game of "fleece the taxpayer" is played.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
Toast wrote on January 19, 2007 6:32 PM:I'd remind expatjourno that the right has already resurrected the stabbed-in-the back myth. Just check out the Op/Ed pages and Letters in any major newspaper if you have any doubts.
"The left" -- as if it were some group that meets the 1st Thursday of every month -- "lost" Eastern Europe, China, N Korea. Then, the unkindest cut of all, Vietnam, with those traitorus hippies and "liberal media" betraying our brave soldiers.
Now they've dragged this canard out again for Iraq. Yes, we had victory and Jeffersonian democracy nearly in our grasp, but for those wussy Dems and complicit media.
De Latron wrote on January 19, 2007 9:00 PM:I will only believe this when I see Bremer testify under oath.
La Vierage wrote on January 19, 2007 9:37 PM:He has had a long time to spread that money around.
Toast:
expatjourno wrote on January 20, 2007 8:29 AM:I just read that AG Gonzales blames bloggers for preventing our brave eavesdroppers from listening in on tairrists to protect our nation
Variation on the stabbed in the back theme this is.
Toast, I need no reminding. It's exactly that phenomenon that has me worried. I don't think that the public yet buys into the message, but the Democrats need to get out there with three little words: It's. Too. Late.
So far, though, the Democrats don't seem to have realized what is about to happen.
Nell wrote on January 20, 2007 11:16 AM:The missing nine billion dollars in question is _not_ American tax dollars. It is the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales, released by the UN Oil for Food program to the CPA in 2003.
There is almost certainly at least another billion or two of U.S. funds appropriated that's missing, wasted, or fraudulently spent, but the famous nine billion dollars, in pallets of cash, is outright theft from the people of Iraq -- monumental insult added to horrific injury.
John wrote on January 20, 2007 7:51 PM:A few year's ago, The Chicago Reader wrote an interesting article on Bremer's change of heart as to nation building. For the life of me I can't find it, but I would love for someone to post the article.
drowsy wrote on February 7, 2007 10:15 AM:Nell,
You are right, it wasn't our tax dollars, but they were even more important to our reputation as an honest broker in the world.
As i understand it, that was the Iraqi people's money. Part of the reason we were told we needed to have this war was to liberate all these oil revenues from the usurpation of the Saddam Hussein.
To accelerate the removal of the money, in untraceable funds, days leading up to the handover when the Iraqi government (the one we're so proud of as a democratic institution) should have had control of it, looks criminal ( RICO territory? ).
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