The Arrogance and Hubris of Jerry Bremer

LARRY C. JOHNSON

[Ed. note: Larry C. Johnson has worked with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism, and is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management.]

As Jerry Bremer [L. Paul Bremer] hits the media circuit to tout his new book, which chronicles his tenure as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, he insists that he and the Administration never anticipated that an insurgency would emerge in Iraq. I am sure Jerry believes what he is saying, but he is wrong. I tried to warn him and I tried to hook him up with genuine experts on Iraq before he went to Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Jerry refused to listen and declined the help. Although Jerry is a brilliant, capable man, he was unwilling to listen to others or accept facts that contradicted the Administration's conventional wisdom. Jerry's arrogance in Iraq was symptomatic of the entire Bush Administration's approach to policy and accounts in large measure for the mess we now face.

For the whole article see Larry Johnson's blog "NO QUARTER".