Monday, February 24, 2003

Garner to "govern" Iraq

by pv vivekanand

Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant-general of the US Army, whose name has started figuring in reports about American plans for post-war Iraq, is tipped to be Washingtons' choice as the man to head a military occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein is toppled in war.
Not much is known about Garner except that he served in the Gulf during the 1991 war and headed American military-led relief operations for the Kurds in northern Iraq after the war when they came under Iraqi army attack following an ill-fated revolt against Saddam.
Garner's specialisation is missile defence, having served as the US Army's programme executive officer for missile defence and overseen the development of both theater and national missile defence systems for the army.
He submitted a comprehensive report to the US Congress in 1992 on how the Patriot missiles successfully performed during the Gulf war as a defensive shield against incoming missles. Patriot missiles were deployed in Saudi Arabia as well as Israel during the war.
Garner headed the US Army Space and Strategic Defence Command before retirment. In that capacity, he directed the activities of the US Army Space Command, Colorado Springs, the Missile Defence and Space Technology Centre, Huntsville, the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands -- test range for ballistic missile defence systems -- and a high energy laser test facility at White Sands, New Mexico where the US is conducting laser research, development, test, and evaluation.
Garner figures in a scandal involving a $48 million contract given by the Space and Missile Defence Command (SMDC) to SY Technology. Garner, who was the president of SV Technology at that time, accuses congressional candidate Biff Baker of making false allegations against his company that have cost it millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Baker, a Libertarian candidate for the House of Representatives from Colorado, continued his public statements against the company and asserted that in addition to the $48 million site activation command (SAC) contract, there were three other contracts worth a total of nearly $100 million in illegal "sweetheart deals" between the active duty generals in Space and Missile Defence Command (SMDC) and Garner. Federal law requires most contracts to be awarded on a competitive bidding basis. Baker is now under a gag order.
SY Tehnology has filed a lawsuit in El Paso county saying Baker falsely accused Garner and SY Technology of fraud, and is asking for millions of dollars in compensation.
Garner now heads a special office consisting of 100 officials from the departments of State, Treasury and Agriculture, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence arms of the govenment, and the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
Garner, according to reports, has steafastly declined to be interviewed after taking over the new office.
While he heads the special office, he is giving particular focus on preparations for organising, integrating and co-ordinating civilian aid, reconstruction, and civil administration or governance in post-war Iraq.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that the office for post-war Iraq held a secret session over the weekend to assess plans for securing and rebuilding Iraq if Saddam Hussein is toppled.
Washington is said to be bracing for an 18-month-to-two-year military occupation of Iraq after Saddam is ousted in war. However, that timeframe is seen as a deliberate misrepresentation since the US is planning to stay as long as it takes to "slap and shape" the country into a shape suitable to serve US interests, others say.
The secret "classified" meeting was held at the Eisenhower Hall of the National Defence University in Washington and was also attended by representatives of allied countries that have supported Washington on Iraq. , officials told the New York Times.
The Times quoted Douglas J. Feith, the under-secretary of defence for policy, as saying that the meeting reviewed "work that has been done in a number of areas, such as civil administration and reconstruction" in post-war Iraq.
He insisted that the planning office's mission would not be to run Iraq, but other reports said Garner was indeed tipped to take over the military occupation of the country after the war.
The weekend meeting also appears to have been a strategy meeting ahead of a gathering of Iraqi exiles where the US plan for military occupation of post-war Iraq is expected to draw stiff rejection.
The reported plan has unnerved Iraqi exiles like Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who has made no secret of his plans to occupy the presidential palace in Baghdad, as well as heads of other Iraqi dissident groups opposed to Saddam.
Chalabi's plans call for setting up "a leadership council of the transitional government of Iraq" drawn from the 65 members of a steering committee appointed at an opposition conference in London in December. The leadership council will draft a temporary constitution and assign an executive committee head to create the first post-Saddam government.
There was concern among American officials that Chalabi might use a meeting of anti-Saddam groups in northern Iraq to annouce the council and US President George W.Bush's special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad agreed to attend the conference only s after its Kurdish hosts guaranteed there would be no declaration of a provisional government.
However, as of Monday, reports said Chalabi himself was not invited to the Irbil meeting but the gathering is expected include independents like former ministers and diplomats.
Khalilzad and a small group of American officials arrived in Turkey on Sunday to attend the meeting inside northern Iraq.
The Bush administration has given up hope of unifying the bickering Iraqi exiles and hence the significance of the plan for bringing the country under military occupation. The American who heads it will be given the title "military governor" backed by an "advisory council" of independent Iraqis. The day-to-day government would be left in the hands of low-level Ba'ath party members who are now in the bureaucracy under the current regime.