Top U.S. Officials in Iraq Being Replaced (Garner leaving, replaced by Bremer)

Reuters ^ | May 11, 2003 | Reuters

[spookycc]

It seems through the eyes of the media that our people aren't doing *anything* in Iraq. 25% of *one* power station running in Baghdad, garbage in the streets, hardly anyone has running water, etc.

I refuse to believe that the Bush administration, who planned the war so well, didn't have a solid plan for post-war Iraq. They had plenty of time to plan for that, with all the bull____ going on in the UN. And I heard that they were planning on using former Iraqi soldiers to do most of the labor - but surely someone else can pick up garbage, etc.

Is a lot of stuff happening that we're not made aware of?

It makes me sad to think that we did such a good thing in freeing the Iraqis, and now we look inept. Esp when we're shuffling people around so early in the reconstruction.

[Grampa Dave]

It is a Washington Compost artice interbred with a Reuters article.

Wait until we see the reality before jumping to conclusions.

It is obvious that the left wing mediots are quagmiring post Regime Change in Iraq. They will be as wrong on that as they were about the quagmire, thousands and thousands of body bags returning to America and not enough foot soldiers to win.

[FairOpinion]

The liberal newsmedia may spin it, but it is fact that Garner and his team has been recalled.

State foisted Bodine on Garner, she was in charge of getting the public utilities going, and didn't and it appears Garner got blamed. But the fact that State never wanted Garner, because he was a retired General and Rumsfeld's first choice makes you wonder about this fight between State and Defense.

As I said before and say it again, Gingrich is 100% right. State Dept. keeps undermining the President.

I think Bush left it to Rumsfeld and Powell to figure out the details, and this is what happened.

Someone pointed it out that ultimately it's Bush's decision, and it is, but you can't go to the president with every little spat between the two departments, they are expected to work it out, or Bush could spend full time adjudicating between them, when in fact he has other things to do.

I think what we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg,in terms of the damage State is doing, by constantly putting the interests of foreign nations ahead of the intersts of the US in the name of "diplomacy". Their job is NOT to represent the interest of foreign nations and persuade the US to bend to their wills, their job is the exact opposite: to bend other nations to OUR interests, which they are not doing.

[FairOpinion]

Many of the problems the Iraqis are experiencing now are NOT the result of the war, but the result of Saddam's rule. You can't fix everything in a month, that was destroyed in 30 years. I think we need some serious public relations work, explaining things to the Iraqis, so they understand that we are working on it and why can't things happen overnight.

Also, we don't know how unhappy the Iraqis really are, we are only getting our news from the liberal anti-US media. I bet that most Iraqis understand that things don't happen overnight. They have lived in abject poverty for many years under Saddam.

[spookycc]

Thanks for responding to my earlier post - I know the Iraqis as a whole aren't as anti-American as some of the demonstrations we see (even on FOXnews, let alone CNN et al).

I think we need a PR campaign with reporters "embedded" with the reconstruction teams, so everyone can see we're trying to help rebuild, and that it's a laborious process. I just haven't seen much info anywhere on what exectly is being done.

[PISANO]

It took several years to rebuild Japan and Germany. We give Garner 3 weeks and then fire him?? Something doesn't make sense. GW does NOT excpect miracles in minutes as the public usually does, so what is the reason? Perplexing!!

[PISANO]

Nothing biased about using the word PRETEXT is there? </sarcasm>

[browardchad]

If the quotes/attitudes ascribed to Garner in this (quagmire) article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution  yesterday have any credibility, then removing Garner quickly was the correct move.

"Garner acknowledged this week that American planners were taken by surprise by the scale of the looting.

Reconstruction planners have acknowledged they came shorthanded and under-equipped. A senior official in Garner's office was not aware that U.S. troops had killed about 13 Iraqis in the town of Fallujah -- front-page news in most of America -- until almost two days later when informed by reporters.

Getting news out is also a problem. Garner has openly lamented his inability to get information to the Iraqi people amid what he said were insufficient American attempts to start up radio and television broadcasts.

"We haven't done a good job," he said. "I want TV going to the people ... programs they want to see."

It's going to be tough getting Iraq rebuilt, and the last thing we need is a leader who at worst may be a quagmirist himself, or, at best, doesn't know how to avoid the traps the media sets.  Garner did a good job with the Kurds, but it may be that he can't handle the other factions (including the press). It's also a positive sign that Bodine is being yanked -- her last Middle East assignment of playing kissy-face with the despots of Yemen doesn't exactly qualify her for the post-9/11 world.

[BlackVeil]

Interesting information re Bodine's role in O'Neill's career, thanks for posting. The way that O'Neill was given a job in the WTC, to start on Sept 11, is just chilling. He was certainly assassinated. How far up these plots went is the big question.

[xm177e2]

He was certainly assassinated

A conspiracy of that magnitude probably wouldn't take risks by assassinating people in that manner--especially because if he survived, they would have to hunt him down and kill him before he could speak out.

[onedoug]

What a damned mess.

[geedee]

You're ABSOLUTELY right! Something smells fishy . . . and Hitlery's nowhere around.

[Fulbright]

Iraq is in chaos. The reconstruction effort in Afghanistan is widely considered to be a failure, with the Taliban a growing threat once again.

Why would anybody think that America could keep order in foreign cities, when are own, places like Detroit, Camden and Newark, are an international disgrace?