Pro-Israel General Will
Oversee Iraq
By Alana Newhouse
The Forward
March 21, 2003
With the United States poised to
invade Iraq, attention has turned to retired army Lt. Gen. Jay
Garner, the man set to govern the country in the event of an American
military victory.
Garner — who in 1991 helped lead
Operation Provide Comfort, which delivered food and shelter to Kurds
in northern Iraq after the Persian Gulf War — will oversee all
the civilian aid, reconstruction and governance of postwar Iraq as
head of the new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
in the Pentagon, reporting to General Tommy
Franks, commander of American forces
in the Persian Gulf area. He left for Kuwait shortly before President
Bush's March 17 televised address.
Garner is said to maintain ties with
the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to strengthening American foreign and defense
policy. In 1998, he visited Israel for the first time on a trip
sponsored by JINSA.
"He's very easy to talk to; he asks a
lot of questions, and he listens to the answers," said Shoshana
Bryen, director of special projects for JINSA, who participated in
the trip with Garner.
In October 2000, shortly after the
outbreak of the intifada, Garner was one of 26 American military
leaders to sign a staunchly pro-Israel statement released by JINSA
condemning the escalating violence. The statement, titled "Friends
Don't Leave Friends on the Battlefield," lauded the Israeli army for
exercising "remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence
orchestrated by the leadership of a Palestinian Authority," and
called into question the Palestinian commitment to peace.
In a reference to the signatories'
JINSA-sponsored trips to Israel, the statement said: "[I]n
those travels, we brought with us our decades of military experience
and came away with the unswerving belief that the security of the
State of Israel is a matter of great importance to U.S. policy in the
Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, as well as around the world. A
strong Israel is an asset that American military planners and
political leaders can rely on."
According to a report in this month's
Fortune magazine, which dubbed Garner "the most important businessman
you've never heard of," Garner retired as a three-star general in
1997 to become president of a provider of communications and
targeting systems for missiles that was bought last year by defense
contractor L-3 Communications for a reported $48 million.
Since his Pentagon appointment in
January, Garner has kept a low profile, to the dismay of some. He
caused a minor fracas last week when he canceled a scheduled
appearance before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The
Associated Press reported that Republican Senator Richard Lugar of
Indiana, who criticized the Bush administration for moving too slowly
in developing plans to rebuild Iraq, highlighted Garner's absence,
calling the cancellation "a missed opportunity for the
administration."
