New US administrator arrives in Iraq
The new US civilian administrator for Iraq arrived today to take over the job of putting the country back together again.
Paul Bremer said he was “delighted to be here” after landing in the southern city of Basra.
“It is a wonderful challenge to help the Iraqi people basically reclaim their country from a despotic regime.”
He flew in with Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the man he replaces as the senior US civilian in Iraq, retired Army Lt Gen Jay Garner.
“I also want to say how proud I am of the work my good friend Jay Garner and the people who are working for him, how proud I am of everything they have done here in the last couple of weeks under extraordinary circumstances,” the state department veteran said.
Reacting to reports that Garner would be leaving the country earlier than originally planned, Bremer said: “I certainly intend to work with him in the next weeks here to get a bunch of serious milestones accomplished.”
Garner said the reports he would be leaving early were “not true”.
“What I say we have here is one team, one fight,” the retired general said. “We will drive on.”
Bremer said former US ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was co-ordinator for central Iraq, including Baghdad, within the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, was being reassigned back to Washington by the State Department “for their own reasons”.
The New York Times said today that four other officials under Garner were also expected to leave soon: Margaret Tutwiler, who had been head of communications; Tim Carney, who was overseeing Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Minerals; David Dunford, a senior Middle East expert; and John Limbert, the ambassador to Mauritania.
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