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Counterterror expert to Iraq
06/05/2003 22:15 - (SA)
Washington - Paul Bremer, a former career diplomat tapped Tuesday by President George W. Bush as his envoy to Iraq, is considered to be one of the leading US specialists in counterterrorism and crisis situations.
Bremer, 61, served 23 years in the State Department, most notably as ambassador-at-large for counterterror from 1986 to 1989. He later joined a consulting firm headed by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
Bremer has a reputation for plain-talking and steadfastness. He had warned of the dangers of terrorist strikes on the United States prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed more than 3 000 people.
Bremer - who US news media reports say will be senior to Iraq's current administrator, retired general Jay Garner - is also close to Rumsfeld and other Pentagon hawks.
During his diplomatic career, Bremer served in posts in Afghanistan, Malawi and Norway before serving as US ambassador in the Netherlands from 1983-1986 and taking the top counterterror job at the State Department.
In 1999, he was named chair of the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorism by the House of Representatives.
In June 2000, while testifying in front of Congress, he warned against the possibility of an extremely destructive terrorist attack on the United States, comparable with the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbour.
He later said he was shocked, but not surprised by the attacks because US intelligence services had sunk into a culture of complacency.
Bremer joined Marsh and McClennan Companies in October 2000 as the head of its political risk business, and a year later became chairman of the crisis consulting practice of Marsh Inc, a subsidiary of the company.
In June, Bush appointed Bremer to the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, where he has taken a hard line on terrorism, supporting the assassination of Islamist militant leaders.
Just before the war in Iraq, Bremer wrongly predicted the traditional US allies in Europe would join the anti-Saddam Hussein coalition.
Bremer graduated from Harvard and Yale universities and studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He speaks French, Norwegian and Dutch.
- AFX
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