Paul Bremer blamed for Iraq mistakes

By freezing British aides out of his inner circle, America's first envoy to Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein left them powerless to stop key mistakes, according to senior officials serving at the time.

As the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion looms on Thursday, Paul Bremer's leadership style has come under renewed criticism from both sides of the Atlantic.

First-hand accounts provided to The Daily Telegraph depict an egotist whose go-it-alone style led to a series of bold but disastrous decisions.

Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, and Lt-Gen David McKiernan, the top military leader in Baghdad at the time, have both said they were not consulted about the decision in May 2003 to disband the Iraqi army.

Lt-Gen McKiernan has gone as far as to state that Mr Bremner's claims otherwise are "absolutely false".

Disbanding Iraq's army now ranks as the most important factor behind the insurgency, which has cost the lives of 3,988 US and 174 British troops.

Mr Bremer has argued that the army had already disbanded itself, but just weeks earlier Lt-Gen McKiernan's staff had warned against the consequences of putting 300,000 trained fighters "on the streets".

Andy Bearpark, a former private secretary to Baroness Thatcher and a director of Mr Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, said: "One of tragedies was that the Brits were so light in their impact. Bremer just didn't want any of their voices getting in the way of his decisions."

Sir Hilary Synnott, a diplomat plucked from his posting as High Commissioner in Islamabad to head the administration in southern Iraq, struggled to establish his bearings in Basra.

"I couldn't even find a computer when I first arrived," he said. "There was no help forthcoming from Baghdad."

Sir Hilary's book, Bad Days in Basra, charts the rising anger he faced in Basra, where he was powerless to provide the basic amenities people expected from an army-backed occupation.

But it was Sir Jeremy Greenstock, nominally Mr Bremer's number two who attracted the American's particular antipathy.

A report submitted to Downing Street in the summer of 2003 stated that Sir Jeremy's background at the United Nations led Mr Bremer to suspect that he was effectively a spy.

Expectations were high when Mr Bremer, a protegé of Henry Kissinger, arrived to take charge. In many ways Mr Bremer, who projected a dashing image in desert boots, was the perfect figurehead for the ambitious project to transform Iraq.

But, in the eyes of his critics, his administrative and personal weaknesses have produced a legacy from which the country is only now slowly escaping.
Telegraph