Chicago Tribune April 13, 2003
Restoring order falls on familiar shoulders in Iraq
By Douglas Holt, Washington Bureau.
Tribune staff reporter Bill Glauber contributed to this report.
In his Pentagon office before he retired, Army Gen. Jay Garner kept a framed, wiggly-lined drawing of a smiling U.S. soldier who has a rifle in one hand while the other reaches down to clasp the outstretched hand of a boy.
The 1991 drawing was by 10-year-old Umer-a-Sindi. It was the Kurdish boy's thank-you for a relief effort Garner helped run: aid to refugees fleeing the Republican Guard after the Persian Gulf war. Garner was such a hit among the Kurds that some carried him on their shoulders before he left their region, according to press reports at the time.
Now Garner has a bigger and more delicate task: He is the Pentagon's point man charged with bringing civil order and humanitarian aid to postwar Iraq, a country ravaged by bombs, looters, ethnic rivalries and decades of brutal rule by Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party loyalists.
Garner, 64, and his 200-person staff have been ensconced in recent weeks in Kuwait chalets overlooking the Persian Gulf. Clipboards in hand, gas masks at their side and buzzing around in new Chevy Suburbans, they have been working feverishly on a postwar plan.
Some critics say they have gotten off to a slow start.
"Where is Garner now?" asked Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday from the Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.
"Why are they in Kuwait? This area is in great need of assistance now," he added.
As head of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which was created by President Bush on Jan. 20, Garner has said little about his job.
On Friday, he spoke to reporters after meeting local leaders in the Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr and addressed security concerns in Iraq, where many cities have descended into anarchy.
"It's getting better," Garner said. "It's not where you want it, but it is getting better."
He insisted Iraq's future is bright.
"It has an educated population that was the jewel of the Middle East at one time, and it can be the jewel of the Middle East again."
Restoring Iraq may not be simple, and even at this early stage, the country's administrator-in-waiting has generated controversy.
Credibility questioned
He has been lampooned in Doonesbury comic strips as an American proconsul, a toga-wearing military ruler of a conquered land.
Arab leaders have questioned his credibility in Iraq, noting that he was among 42 retired U.S. military leaders to sign an Oct. 12, 2000, statement organized by the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The statement said Israeli armed forces had "exercised remarkable restraint" in the face of appalling tactics by Palestinian authorities.
On a Web site, www.stopjaygarner.com, critics express doubts about the wisdom of having a retired U.S. military officer who is on leave from his post as president of a military contractor in the job of peacemaker.
Michael Shellenberger, 31, a San Francisco-area consultant, said he created the Web site because he worries about the potential backlash against Garner, perhaps in the form of more terrorist attacks on the United States.
"Jay Garner is a guy who has spent his whole life practicing conflict and how to fight," Shellenberger said.
"This is a guy who left the Army to the private sector so he could sell weapons systems to his former buddies," he added.
Friends and acquaintances of Garner describe him as a down-to-earth, straight-talking, modest man who has a soft touch that belies his military resume.
His daughter, Lori Gibson, said she has read stopjaygarner.com and didn't recognize the subject of its ire.
"When I read that, I just laugh because they just don't know this guy at all," she said.
Experts say that one reason Operation Provide Comfort, the 1991 Kurdish relief effort, worked well was Garner's ability to delegate authority to humanitarian agencies.
"I think he is without question the man who could make this thing work," said Stephen Henthorne, a professor of civil-military relations at the Army War College Peacekeeping Institute.
But even some of Garner's backers question whether the Pentagon should be leading the reconstruction effort.
Among the decisive
"I'm a big Jay Garner-Don Rumsfeld fan. I think they have decisive leadership," said Chris Seiple, a former Marine Corps captain whose book was published by the Army War College. Nonetheless, he said, reconstructing Iraq would work better if a civilian, without military ties, led the effort.
"There's the perception of this as a Pentagon show," Seiple said. "It doesn't matter whether Jay is Jay now and not a retired lieutenant general."
Garner's 33-year Army career included serving twice as an adviser during the Vietnam War, leading the Army's space and strategic defense command and working as the Army's assistant vice chief of staff in 1997.
His military career has had its bumps. In 1992, he praised the Patriot anti-missile system as a "terrific success" story during the gulf war for knocking out 40 percent of the Iraqi missiles fired at Israel and 70 percent of those fired at Saudi Arabia. Later the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, reported that the overall Patriot success rate was less than 10 percent.
After leaving the military, Garner became president of SY Technology, a Virginia-based provider of communications and targeting systems for missiles. L-3 Communications bought SY last year for $48 million.
After the merger, Garner ran an L-3 subsidiary, SY Coleman, which has provided technical advice to the Patriot system deployed in the Iraq theater. He also helped oversee development work on Israel's Arrow anti-missile system.
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U.S. team to guide in rebuilding Iraq
American executive and retired Army Gen. Jay Garner will serve as Iraq's temporary top administrator once hostilities cease. His team, divided into six divisions, will include more than 200 Washington bureaucrats, Pentagon staffers, aid workers and private contractors.
NAME: Jay Garner
RESPONSIBILITY: Postwar governor
FORMER JOB: Retired Army general, on leave from defense contractor L-3 Communications
NAME: Bruce Moore
RESPONSIBILITY: Northern Iraq
FORMER JOB: Retired general
NAME: "Buck" Walters
RESPONSIBILITY: Southern Iraq
FORMER JOB: Lieutenant general who retired from the Army in 1994 after 32 years of service
NAME: George Ward
RESPONSIBILITY: Humanitarian assistance
FORMER JOB: Former ambassador to Namibia
NAME: Lewis Lucke
RESPONSIBILITY: Reconstruction
FORMER JOB: U.S. Agency for International Development veteran
NAME: Michael Mobbs
RESPONSIBILITY: Civil administration
FORMER JOB: Close political ally of Donald Rumsfeld and former law partner of Assistant Defense Secretary Douglas Feith
Sources: Foreign Policy in Focus; Robin Leeds, GlobalSecurity.org; news reports
AMERICA AT WAR. POSTWAR PLANNING.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO GRAPHIC MAPPHOTO (color): (Jay) Garner.; MAP (color): PROPOSED HEADQUARTERS. Chicago Tribune.
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