WASHINGTON – President Bush followed through Tuesday with his plan to give the Iraq reconstruction effort a new civilian boss.
Career diplomat L. Paul Bremer (search) will now lead efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation, supervising Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who is currently running the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. (search)
The move comes as Garner's office announced that an interim Iraqi government should be in place by the end of the month. That government is expected to be made up of a variety of representatives from Iraqi minority groups.
Bremer, a former ambassador and head of the State Department's counterterrorism office (search), "goes with the full blessing of the administration," Bush said in comments to reporters after a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"The ambassador is a person who knows how to get things done, he is a can-do person," Bush said. "He shares the value that most Americans have, the deep desire to have an orderly and free society in Iraq."
Bremer, 61, is a former assistant to former Secretaries of State William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger. He was ambassador-at-large for counterrorism from 1986 to 1989. He also served as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.
He was later employed by Kissinger's consulting firm and currently serves as chairman and chief executive of the Marsh Crisis Consulting company.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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