HE'S BAAAAAAACK! IRAQ DISASTER ARCHITECT PAUL BREMER SAYS HE "WON'T BE A "PUNCHING BAG"

ANDY MARTIN SAYS, "OH YES HE WILL. FOREVER"

A NEW INSTALLMENT OF THE SOAP OPERA "AS BREMER'S WORLD TURNS"

(CHICAGO)(May 14, 2007) Paul Bremer just won't leave well enough alone. Or maybe he can't. Maybe he knows more than he wants to admit; and each time he admits a little more he opens the door to future admissions. And questions.

In yesterday's Washington Post (May 13) Bremer says he won't be a "punching bag" for his critics. Then he spills the beans on more evidence that ensures he will continue to be a punching bag. He seeks to distort the history of Iraq in 2003-2004 when Bremer was destroying the country. Amusingly, the national media that treated Bremer seriously when he was in Baghdad, still treat him seriously and provide him with a soapbox.

Finally, for comic relief in his latest transcript of the tragedy, Bremer plays the Bush Family favorite: the Nazi card.

Bremer began yesterday's apologia by claiming that Saddam Hussein had modeled himself on Adolph Hitler. Shades of George H. W. Bush. It is a peculiar form of American racism that we do not credit Arabs with any independent intelligence or creativity; they must have copied some European model for whatever they do. Saddam Hussein was a Middle East dictator; his barbarism and atrocities were entirely homegrown.

Unfortunately, comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany have been a stable feature of Bush family attitudes towards Iraq. Apparently they feel we Americans are either too stupid or too racist to question or care about such analogies.

Bremer says, "We had no choice [but to invade Iraq] to give [Iraqis] a brighter future." Some bright future. Four years later, we can’t even keep the lights on in Baghdad. And so, finally, Bremer confesses why we invaded Iraq: The "Nazis" made us do it. So much for the president's foreign policy. President Bush has denied "the Israelis made me do it," which is probably closer to the truth. He probably never thought of blaming Adolph Hitler. Yet.

Bremer drops the dime on Douglas Feith, an Israeli attorney who was serving in a high position at the Pentagon, and is now a "Visiting Professor" at Georgetown University and also serves at Harvard as an expert on "terrorism."

Honestly, if Feith has anything to do with "terrorism," America is doomed.

Bremer says "The day before I left for Iraq in May [2003]…Douglas Feith presented me with a draft law that would purge top Baathists." Bremer says Feith's desire was to remove a "small group of true believers..not to harass rank-and-file Sunnis." Bremer says "Feith's Law" only implicated "1 percent of Baath party members."

In a reversal of field worthy of an NFL running back, Bremer then says that the Baath party bad boys had inserted a competent layer of "senior civil servants…running the Iraqi ministries." So, in Bremer's World the evil Baath leaders (say "Naaazzi" if you prefer) had left behind "impressive…senior civil servants to guide Iraq." Well, that's news to me and probably everyone else.

Before yesterday, no one has ever suggested that just below the evil Baath thugs was a secret layer of competent "senior civil servants." This "corps of competency" exists only in "Bremer's World," nowhere else. There were competent Iraqis scattered about, but the Iraqi government as a whole lacked any "generally impressive" body of civil servants.

And, then, Bremer confesses. "I was wrong here." Those nasty Shiites ruined Feith's Law. It's all their fault. Blame the Shiites. Bremer says, "The Iraqi leaders…broadened the decree's impact far beyond our original design." And what did Bremer do? He did nothing. Rummy did nothing. No one did anything. Bob Woodward has written that General Jay Garner's warnings were ignored. So, today, in Bremer's World, a new reality is exposed: the Shiites were responsible for the failure of de-Baathification. Ucch.

Bremer goes on to defend the "disbanding" of the Iraqi Army. He has a simple explanation. "[T]here was no Iraqi Army to disband." In Bremer's World, the Iraqi Army enlisted ranks were "almost all Shiite." No problem there; I thought Shiites were our friends. But the troops had gone "back home." Bremer did not want to "send U. S. troops into Shiite villages to force the [Shiite soldiers] back at gunpoint." Whew. Good call, Paul.

This is more malarkey from Bremer's World. Bremer knows nothing about soldiers or armies. The man who did, General Jay Garner, was thrown out of Iraq by Rummy, Feith and the other crackpots that are now hiding behind closed doors in Washington. They were afraid Garner might get it right and make it work.

Soldiers and armies are the most loyal people and institutions in organized society. If asked to, the soldiers, yes those Shiites, most of them, would have shown up, to be paid, and they would have helped maintain order.

In Bremer's World the nonexistent Iraqi Army posed so many risks to peace and stability it is almost amazing he did not "send U. S. troops into Shiite villages." The big risk of recalling the existing Army: Iran and Turkey would have invaded Iraq if the Iraqi Army and been activated.

Who knew those Turks and Iranians were at fault! Oh, my God. Who knew that! The Persians, invading Iraq? In 2003? Because of Shiites being recalled into the Army? And the Turks too. Why that's an act of war. How dare they invade?

Bremer says he would not have trusted any Iraqi Army even if it did turn up. "[N]either the U.S.-led coalition nor the Iraqis could have relied on the allegiance of a recalled army." But then Bush & Co. never really trusted Arabs to begin with. Bushies had their law offices in Tel Aviv (Feith). Why would pro-Israel sympathizers operating inside the U.S. Government want to trust Iraqi soldiers?

Bremer then says he "started paying pensions to officers from the old Army." Yup, in Bremer's World he would not recall the enlisted men because they were Shiites, but he would pay pensions to those hated Baathist Sunni officers. Does this make sense?

I was outside the Green Zone when American troops massacred Iraqi soldiers who were asking for their pensions. We killed innocent people who were protesting peacefully, "to protect Americans," of course.

The truth: General Jay garner wanted to avoid instant de-Baathification because he knew exactly what would happen, and it did. Garner wanted to retain the army, and work from within to reform the ranks. His instincts were sound. Garner just might have succeeded. Which is why he was replaced. Bush & Co., and Feith, Wolfowitz & Rummy, put a clown in charge that was guaranteed to fail.

Some people feel Feith, Wolfowitz & Co. put Bremer in charge knowing he would fail, and that Iraq would collapse. Draw your own conclusions. They dumped competence (Garner) and imposed incompetence (Bremer) on an occupied nation.

In the pages of the Washington Post Bremer chides "people who have never visited Iraq." He should include himself. Bremer never visited Iraq, never saw Iraq, never had anything to do with Iraq. He lived locked away in his "Green Zone." I called it the "Emerald City" and refused to visit. Inside his cocoon he took his marching orders from Douglas Feith. Bremer knew nothing about Iraq when he was physically present but mentally absent from Iraq in 2003-2004, and he has learned nothing about Iraq since departing the country.

Instead, Bremer continues to live in Bremer's World, not the real world. In the real world Americans are dying, for no clear policy, for no clear goals, for no hope of imposing democracy and freedom on a country that was dismembered through American incompetence and possibly design.

I wonder if Doug Feith ("Professor Feith?" Don't make me laugh.) still visits Bremer, occasionally. Bremer and Feith will go down in American history as evil people that destroyed American policy, destroyed our economy and scarified American lives, all for what?

It makes you wonder: why do Georgetown University and Harvard continue to allow Feith to associate himself with those educational institutions? Is Feith telling his students the truth? Don't bet on it. Then what is he doing at Harvard and Georgetown, but lying all over again?

Sadly, the Washington Post still gives Bremer a podium from which to preach his nonsense.

Finally, a personal note, Mr. Bremer, in response to your ridicule of your critics "who have never visited Iraq." That lacuna does not apply to me. I was there. I lived there. In Baghdad. I saw it all. I wrote about it, and my words of condemnation are a documented record for all to revisit and read. Forever. Where were you? And where are you?

Bremer's World.

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Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2007. Martin covers national and world politics with forty years of personal experience. Martin, America's most respected independent foreign policy and intelligence analyst, served as a Baghdad Bureau Chief in most of 2003 and became the nemesis of Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; ContrarianCommentary.wordpress.com
Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Web sites: ContrarianCommentary.com, AndyforUSSenator.com