After the fall of Baghdad, the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance was established under Lieutenant General Jay Garner to administer postwar Iraq. OHRA was staffed by many of the Middle-East experts from the [State Dept.'s] former Future of Iraq Project. Garner wanted to quickly establish an Iraqi civil government through elections while Rummy and the neo-cons insisted on de-Ba'athification. When Garner refused to comply, Rummy fired him and disbanded the ORHA, and replaced it with the Coalition Provisional Authority which recruited ideologically-pure rookies and rubes from the Heritage Foundation. Garner himself was replaced by Baghdad fashion maven and incompetent administrator L. Paul Bremer.

Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army and established the Iraqi Governing Council, which was composed mostly of former exiles with little political support within Iraq, but having close connections to the neo-cons in Rummy's Defense Department. Among the accomplishments of the IGC were choosing a new Iraqi flag (which went over like a fart in the mosque) replacing secular family law with Sharia family law, and banning newspapers and television stations deemed unsupportive of the occupation.

Meanwhile, Bremer and the CPA was mismanaging Iraq's reconstruction (when they weren't busy establishing Baghdad chapter of the Optimists Club.) They awarded contracts to American firms and publicly announced a policy of blackballing companies from countries that had not supported the war, while CPA Order 17 granted immunity to all foreign firms from Iraqi civil and criminal law. Contractors working for the CPA were exempt from taxes and tariffs that gave domestic Iraqi businesses a competitive advantage over large foreign contractors were lifted.

This was all part of an effort to reshape Iraq's economy from a centrally-planned economy to a neo-con ideologically-approved economy friendly to foreign investors and against the interests of the Iraqi population. CPA orders reversed Iraqi law to allow unlimited and unrestricted foreign investment, and removed limits on the expatriation of profits.

Bremer's CPA was also responsible for managing two reconstruction funds. One was the former UN Oil-For-Food Fund, which was re-named the Development Fund for Iraq and raised about 20 billion dollars in 2003 from foreign donors and oil revenue. The other was the Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund, which consisted of 18 billion dollars appropriated by the US Congress.

DFI funds were supposed to be disbursed by the CPA with oversight from the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, an organization established [by] the United Nations when the CPA assumed control of the former UN Oil-For-Food Program. Funds were supposed to be transparently disbursed under IAMB oversight with Iraqi input on spending priorities. To meet these requirements, the CPA established an internal Program Review Board, consisting of ten CPA staffers and one member of the IGC.

By the end of the CPA's lifespan in June 2004, they had spent $19.1 billion of the DFI funds but only $400 million of IRRF funds. The IAMB, in an effort to discover where all the DFI money went appointed the accounting firm KPMG to audit spending by the CPA's Program Review Board. The audit found that PRB minutes failed to record why expenditures were approved [or] who approved them, [that] attendance was not recorded, [that] expenditures were made without meeting quorums, [and that] expenditures were made by Bremer and other CPA staffers without PRB approval. The audit also discovered the CPA had shipped Iraqi oil through unmetered pipelines, meaning there was no way to determine the amount of Iraqi oil the CPA had sold or where it actually went. A later US Congressional report documented many more instances of fraud, waste and abuse of DFI funds.

The CPA was disbanded on June 28th 2004, when Bremer cut and ran back to the United States. Oil and electricity production remained below pre-war levels, water and sanitation systems were breaking down, food and fuel distribution was increasingly difficult and unemployment was estimated at 35%.

In 2005, George W. Bush awarded Bremer the Medal of Freedom for his performance in Iraq.

and Tom - don't forget Bremer is a wicked excellent cook! :

From Diplomacy to Demi-Glace
His Classically Inspired Menu Gets Some Touches Acquired in Iraq

By Shawn Cunningham
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, September 14, 2005; Page F01

L. Paul Bremer never cooked a meal during his 14 months in Iraq, but a kitchen nearly 6,000 miles away fed his spirit.

"This stove was an important part of my sanity," Bremer remembers with a smile as he leans against a half-ton of blue enameled cast iron, stainless steel and brass -- a La Cornue range -- in the Vermont vacation home he keeps with his wife Francie and where he is writing a book on his Iraq experiences.

Bremer's recipes reflect his French training with accents of his travels and postings abroad.

"I had a picture of this house on my computer desktop in Baghdad," says Bremer, who also has a home in Chevy Chase. "If someone asked, I'd say, 'That's where I'm building my dream kitchen.' "

And that culinary incentive helped to keep him going in the pressure-cooker job as the controversial administrator of Iraq's reconstruction, because Bremer is also a classically trained French cook.

Dressed in a white chef's jacket marked with some faded stains of memorable meals, Bremer is ready to prepare the French dinner he donated to a local charity auction.

Tonight's dinner is typical of his cooking since returning from Baghdad -- classically French, but seasoned with ingredients he encountered during his days in Iraq.

Bremer looks younger than his 63 years -- slim with thick, black hair that's a bit more gray than in his pre-Iraq photos. Long bike rides in the mountains keep him fit despite a diet loaded with butter, cream, eggs and cheese.

A trip to his small garden for tomatoes and herbs begins the preparation. The late-summer meal will start with a chicken liver pate (made the day before) and continue with cold cucumber avocado soup, braised chicken breast in demi-glace sauce seasoned with dried limes (more about those later), fresh carrot puree, a composed salad highlighting tomatoes and cucumbers in a variety of sizes and colors and a dessert of Fontainebleau (made a day in advance) with pomegranate molasses (be patient) and berries.

Bremer began cooking when he was deputy ambassador to Norway in the mid-1970s. On Sundays when there were no official dinners and the embassy cook was off, he started making the Chinese food he loved but couldn't get in Oslo. Soon the Bremers were inviting Norwegian friends who would pitch in. "It was a wonderful way to entertain," says Bremer, "one chopping this and one chopping that. It was a half-hour of prep and 45 seconds of cooking."

By the time Bremer was named ambassador to the Netherlands, he was already cooking one night a week. When Francie Bremer observed that her husband (known to friends as Jerry) liked to cook more than she did, he took over the bulk of the kitchen duty. "When Jerry goes at something 100 percent, you just have to stand back," she says.

Returning from the Netherlands, Bremer took a few courses at L'Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg. When he worked as a consultant at Kissinger and Associates in New York, he studied under Henri-Etienne Levy, an Alsatian chef who gives classes for two or three students at a time in the tiny kitchen of his apartment on the Upper West Side under the name La Cuisine Sans Peur (Cooking Without Fear).

"Levy would cook, and the students would take notes," Bremer says. "Levy teaches you technique." After a general survey, a student can move on to regional French cuisines or baking or pastry or some other specialty. Bremer signed up for Provencal cooking and continued to take night classes for five years -- including the one that convinced him he was not a baker. He was however, an intuitive cook who was rapidly improving his skills.

Turning to the composed salad, Bremer slices the tomatoes and cucumbers. "As your cooking moves to a higher level, so should your ingredients," he says as he slices and tastes.

Although he has only a small plot of tomatoes and herbs in Vermont, Bremer planted a large garden at his home in Chevy Chase and keeps a greenhouse there to supply him with many of his vegetables.

Bremer's recipes reflect his French training with accents of his travels and postings abroad.

"I don't think that root vegetables are so different if I grow them. But my own beans, spinach and tomatoes taste better. . . . I grow all of my own herbs. Thyme is essential. I cook a lot with thyme."

For other vegetables, Bremer says he sometimes goes to the farmers market in Alexandria, "and there is a little farm stand near our house that has good melons and zucchini and corn. Balducci's always has interesting little bits of things and the Whole Foods near me has good heavy cream, Cabot butter and some French butters. Dairy is very important to my cooking."

Meat, however, is "a frustration. There used to be a great French butcher in Bethesda, but I don't know where he went while I was in Iraq."

Earlier in the day at a local Vermont farmers market, Bremer bought cucumbers of just the right size and shape for the salad and searched for something with color to go with a browned chicken breast in a dark sauce. Selecting carrots over beets, he accepted a vendor's offer to taste a "husk tomato." Also known as cape gooseberries, they are a relative of the tomatillo with a surprising sweet and sour flavor.

Bremer bought a small bag. "I'll do something with these," he said.

Tasting sausage and pate at a charcuterie stand, Bremer switched to French to discuss the samples with the vendor. "He's from Marseilles," Bremer says a moment later to explain the North African influence in the chef's choice of spices.

Back in his kitchen, Bremer agrees that travel has influenced his tastes. Afganistan, his first posting, has "the best bread in the world -- naan." Norway taught Bremer to appreciate fish, and China made him open to try almost anything. But Iraqi cuisine comes in for special mention.

"The food in Iraq is delicious," says Bremer, "a blend of standard Arabic cuisine with Persian influences and Turkish influence in the north. And the Kurds live in a garden paradise -- they can grow anything: nuts, apples, pears, apricots, grapes, melons, herbs. They make great goat cheeses, cow's milk cheeses and the best honey I've eaten anywhere."

As for putting those such influences into practice, "I'm inclined to use a technique I know and add an ingredient I've found traveling," Bremer says, handing out samples of the dried lime that will add a subtle tang to the silky rich demi-glace and the pomegranate molasses that is in stages sweet, sour and bitter and that will cut and accentuate the creamy richness of the Fontainebleau for dessert.

The three hours before dinner are all about food. Cooking, tasting and talking. Dinner is served in courses and as each arrives at the table, the buzz of conversation is followed by an appreciative silence.

Obviously at ease, Bremer moves quickly to assemble the salads as his guests finish their chicken. Francie Bremer, breezing through the busy kitchen to retrieve the water pitcher, is every bit as relaxed. "As diplomats," she jokes, "you come downstairs and find 300 people you don't know in your living room."

As he makes espresso after dinner, Bremer says the reason he cooks is that he likes to eat good food. He doesn't read food essays or collect cookbooks or wish he could be a professional chef. "Food is about right in my life," he continues. "It doesn't possess me. I do it as a hobby -- it's important to keep it in perspective."

Still, he will miss his Vermont kitchen when he returns to Chevy Chase. "The kitchen at home is much, much smaller. It works, but I don't have a decent stove," Bremer says. "There's a lot that argues for doing the kitchen over, but I don't look forward to three months with it in an uproar." At the thought of eating in a restaurant every night during the construction, he smiles and says, "I eat better at home."

Shawn Cunningham is a freelance writer living in Vermont. He last wrote for Food about peasant food.
- SHM (guest) 10-18-2005 3:30 am

Unbelievable. You wonder if this guy will ever get his comeuppance, or just continue to float through life. Also--Shawn Cunningham, suck my dick.
- tom moody 10-18-2005 9:01 pm

Lives of the Rich and Fatuous
- mark 10-20-2005 12:35 am

"And I won the Medal of Freedom..."
"Oh?"
"...from George Bush."
"Oh."
- tom moody 10-20-2005 1:01 am