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The sordid tale now making the rounds in the "mainstream" press of a rogue Pentagon intelligence operation has all the elements of an urban legend: heavy breathing, a secret basement office "down by the ramp" and government officials who form a hidden alliance based on long-ago ties to an obscure but influential university guru. Only the work of a few good men with the courage to face up to this "cabal" - and a few crusader-journalists to help them - can make the demons scatter and scare the dark ones into the light. Or so the story goes on those...

On May 13, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy berated Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Senate Armed Services Committee, condemning "disaster after disaster" in U.S. Iraq policy. Well before the Abu Ghraib revelations, Kennedy has sought to transform Iraqi freedom from a philosophical and strategic issue into a partisan debate, without regard either to reality or result. On April 6, Kennedy called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam." On March 5, 2004, Senator Edward Kennedy, speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, took the president to task for allegedly exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq: "The evidence so far leads to...

LONDON - The retired American general who headed the first occupation government in Iraq (news - web sites) says the decision to disband the Iraqi army was one of several major mistakes Washington has made in Iraq. AP Photo Latest headlines: · Pentagon Sending More Marines to Iraq AP - 51 minutes ago · US readies extra marines for IraqAFP - 56 minutes ago · Iraq's Shiites Oppose U.S. Election Plan AP - 1 hour, 47 minutes ago Special Coverage   The United States should also have put more more troops into Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news...

LONDON - The retired general who headed the first occupation government in Iraq said Wednesday the United States made major mistakes, including disbanding the Iraqi army, putting too few troops on the ground and failing to explain the goals of the war. Jay Garner, in his most critical comments yet, said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that the series of mistakes began in April when the U.S. military did not act quickly to maintain law and order and preserve the buildings needed for the government ministries. "If we did it over again, we probably would have put more dismounted infantrymen...

Garner: Up to 1 million corpses may be found By Mark Fineman and John Hendren, Los Angeles Times, 7/3/2003 WASHINGTON -- The former head of the US-led effort to rebuild Iraq said yesterday that investigators would find the corpses of as many as 1 million Iraqis executed during Saddam Hussein's reign. Reflecting the Bush administration's increasing emphasis on human-rights violations by Hussein -- as more time passes without discovery of weapons of mass destruction -- retired Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner offered the highest such estimate to date by a present or former senior official of the US-led coalition. ''I...

WASHINGTON — The former head of the U.S.-led effort to rebuild Iraq predicted Wednesday that investigators would find the corpses of as many as 1 million Iraqis executed during Saddam Hussein’s reign.

WASHINGTON, July 1 (UPI) -- If retired Army Lt. Gen Jay Garner knew in January what he knows now, Baghdad might be a very different place. He would have brought with him a telephone system for Iraqi civilians to use so they could instantly communicate with one another and with the Americans running the government. He would have brought a police-training force to rapidly get the law on the street. And he would have brought more cash to stimulate the economy and win the allegiance of Iraqis hard hit by years of sanctions. "If I knew then what I know...

Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 2:40 p.m. EDT Secretary Rumsfeld Media Availability with Jay Garner (Also participating is Jay Garner, Former Director, Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.  Photos of today's briefing are available at http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Jun2003/030618-D-9880W-111.html and http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Jun2003/030618-D-9880W-100.html.) Rumsfeld: As you may have noticed, Jay Garner -- General Jay Garner is in town and has been good enough to join me here and make a statement and respond to some questions. Before he does, let me just say a few things about him. I do want to thank Jay for the absolutely superb job that he has done in laying the...

The US civil administration paid out the first government wages to Iraqis since the US-led war, giving wages to thousands of Baghdad electricity workers. It hopes the payments - set eventually to reach about 1.4 million civil servants and ranging from $80 to $400 a month - will send a signal that normal life is returning to the country after weeks of chaos and deteriorating security conditions. "Its a start, a good start and the rest will get paid through the rest of the week," said Jay Garner, the outgoing director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA)....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 18, 2003 Bored With Baghdad — Already By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN AGHDAD, Iraq Last Wednesday two top U.S. generals in Iraq held a news conference in Baghdad's half-wrecked convention center. The subject was deteriorating security and the two officers, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan and Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, were pummeled by the press about why they weren't doing more to make Baghdad safer. It was 102 degrees, and in the middle of the session all the lights went out. The two generals looked like they were enjoying this encounter about as much as a root canal. At...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top American officials in charge of running post-war Iraq are being relieved of their jobs in what U.S. officials said was part of a broad shake-up of U.S. operations in Iraq, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. Retired U.S. Gen. Jay Garner, who has overseen the rebuilding of Iraq for the Bush administration over the last three weeks, will be departing with some of his top aides, possibly within a week or two, the Post reported. Barbara Bodine, the American coordinator for central Iraq and the effective post-war mayor of Baghdad, will leave for Washington on...

BAGHDAD - A council of up to nine Iraqis will probably lead the country’s still unformed interim government through the coming months, the American civil administrator said on Monday.Retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner also said he expects the newly appointed L. Paul Bremer, former head of the State Department’s counter terrorism office, to take charge of the political process within the US postwar administration.“What you may see is as many as seven, eight, nine leaders working together to provide leadership,” Garner said. He added, though, that he didn’t know how the collective leadership would function specifically.The Iraqi leaders Garner referred...

Iraqis emulate Palestinians by stoning troops By Phil Reeves in Baghdad 27 April 2003 A tactic of the Palestinian intifada has spread ominously to Iraq, less than three weeks after US tanks rolled into the middle of Baghdad. American troops are coming under attack from Iraqi children throwing stones, replaying scenes from the West Bank and Gaza Strip that were broadcast on state-run television before the fall of Saddam Hussein. News reports said that children – who at first flocked around the American forces, and were given sweets by the soldiers – have begun hurling rocks in Mosul and the...

The "governmental process" in Iraq will be up and running by the end of next week and all ministries will have Iraqi officials at the helm as soon as possible, the retired American general in charge of rebuilding the country said today. Retired Lt.-Gen. Jay Garner spoke at a news conference after meeting with scores of Iraqi technocrats and academics on efforts to bring democracy and stability to this leaderless country. "You will begin to see the governmental process begin by the end of next week," he said. "It is very important that people start back to work, especially those...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - The retired U.S. general overseeing Iraq's reconstruction promised Thursday to remove Baghdad's self-proclaimed mayor if residents of the capital rejected him. But Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, who declared himself the city's new administrator earlier this month, met aides he has appointed to run Baghdad's public services and toured hospitals and water plants, undaunted by the threat from the general, Jay Garner. Zubaidi has appointed 22 committees to function in place of ministries, including health, education, water, electricity, oil and industry. Garner, put in charge of rebuilding Iraq by the United States after the three-week war that ousted...

Shiites Emerge as Iraq's Key Players Wooing the Shiite clerics, however, is a daunting task for General Jay Garner, the U.S. administrator for post-Saddam Iraq. Shiite religious-political groups are far from united, and their divisions are potentially violent, as the fatal stabbing two weeks of a prominent pro-Western cleric at Najaf demonstrated. Ayatollah Abdel Majid al-Khoei was murdered by supporters of a young cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, who seek an Iran-style Islamic state in Iraq and are innately hostile towards cooperation with the U.S. But the supreme clerical authority in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, has been more cautious. And...

Iraqi Shiites Are Fast Filling the Power Vacuum Left by the Ouster of Saddam Hussein The Associated Press KARBALA, Iraq April 23 — Iraqi Shiites are organizing local committees, doling out funds to pay salaries, collecting looted property and sending militias to secure hospitals and electric plants. The Shiites are fast filling the power vacuum left by the ouster of Saddam Hussein and some fear their dominance of postwar Iraqi politics could lead to an Islamic theocracy like the one next door in Shiite-dominated Iran. Long repressed under Saddam's Sunni-dominated government and representing 60 percent of Iraq's population of 24...

<p>Coalition forces have discovered numerous torture chambers used by Saddam Hussein's secret police and political operatives to silence opponents, as well as mass graves where executed dissidents were buried.</p> <p>"The whole range of what we expected to find, unfortunately we've found," said a State Department official.</p>

The top American civilian administrator for Iraq met today in northern Iraq with the two main Kurdish leaders and called for a new Iraqi government to be a "mosaic," fairly representing all Iraqis. The official, Jay Garner, a retired Army lieutenant general, received a notably warmer greeting in the north than he had the day before in Baghdad, with cheers, hugs and a shower of flower petals reflecting his efforts in the early 1990's to help create the thriving Kurdish autonomous area of northeastern Iraq. "The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one government," General Garner...

Americans accused of turning blind eye to killings by Kurds By Kim Sengupta in Kirkuk 23 April 2003 A bitter conflict is unfolding in northern Iraq between two minority communities, with the Americans accused of turning a blind eye to killings and ethnic cleansing. The Kurds, the victims of oppression by Saddam Hussein and previous regimes in Baghdad, are being blamed for a violent campaign of intimidation against the Turkoman population. Organisations representing the Turkomans say they want British and European troops to protect them because the Americans are acquiescing in what is taking place. Kirkuk, a city with a...