Paul Bremer, the 61-year old former diplomat and counter-terrorism expert who is now the most powerful man in Iraq, looked every inch the politician on the campaign trail. Which in a sense he is.
For if Bremer, whose square-jawed clean-cut image is already attracting the predictable allusions to JFK, can deliver on the many US promises on Iraq, a second term for his political masters in the White House would be virtually guaranteed.
He was appointed as chief civilian administrator six weeks ago as US plans for post-war Iraq were at the brink of disaster.
With US planners caught off guard, pre-war promises about handing the running of the country to Iraqis as soon as possible fell by the way. There have been experiments with elections at municipal level but votes in some southern Shia strongholds have been cancelled. The country will be ready for democracy, the American authority seemed to be saying, but not just yet.
”Freedom from Saddam, yes. But why can’t my wife go out alone?” asked Karim Hafez, a resident in Baghdad’s Jadriyah area. ”I think Iraqis want and should have much more say in their future. That’s what we were promised.”
Conditions in too many areas of the country are still miserable and despair among ordinary Iraqis is growing.
Does Bremer have what it takes to turn it all around? Unlike his predecessor, the retired general Jay Garner, Bremer is said to enjoy support from both the state department and the Pentagon.
As a consequence he enjoys a degree of freedom to do what he thinks right. Yet he has no experience in the Middle East, or in post-conflict reconstruction, and pressure on him to delive is increasing by the day.
”We must all be patient,” Bremer said in Daraban. ”We have to recognise that the economy was run down by 30 years of misallocation of capital and outright theft; it is not going to be turned around overnight.”
But if Bremer does possess ”that vision thing,” for Iraq as his aides insist, it did not seem to have got through to the hard-up residents of Daraban. ”Is he our new president?” asked Ahmed Bawari (17). ”Will he give me a job?” The message of renewal is also being largely obscured by attacks on US and British soldiers.
Bremer told the BBC at the weekend that the US would fight the attackers, ”capture or, if necessary, kill them until we have imposed law and order.”
His controversial remarks appeared to rule out the involvement of Iraqis in their own security and to put the much-vaunted democratic political process on the back burner.
But talking to the Guardian on the plane flying him and his entourage back to Baghdad, Bremer appeared less strident, saying merely that the US’s goal was to ”guarantee security of Iraq for all Iraqis”.
He said.”We regret the death of soldiers and civilians and soldiers last week. The first and most important task is to find those responsible. We must find these people before they can kill us. One more soldier dead is too many,” he said.
”Most of the sabotage that we have seen is politically motivated. And it appears to be coming from former members of the regime, Ba’athists, Saddam’s Fedayeen, and some terrorists. More Iraqis are coming forward and pointing out the former Ba’athists who live on the corner of their street.”
The hunt for Saddam himself was also crucial. ”Finding Saddam is very important. While there’s the suggestion he’s out there it gives a platform to those who want to keep the fear and uncertainty going. We will spare no effort to get him. We will capture him and he will not get away.” – Guardian Unlimited Â