Former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer III, who was in charge of America’s efforts to reconstruct Iraq, took on the contentious topic of rebuilding Iraq, asserting Tuesday that Saddam’s Hussein’s regime was modeled after Adolf Hitler’s and that despite the lack of evidence for weapons of mass destruction, the United States was correct to intervene because Iraqis were suffering from horrific conditions.
Bremer said the “horrors of Saddam’s regime” fully struck him and his team when they found their first Iraqi mass grave.
“I saw a grave the size of three football fields, and between the bones, veiled women were looking for their relatives,” Bremer said.
“Most Americans have never seen such an appalling scene [in person],” he said. “Every police station had a torture chamber, some even had rape chambers. In there, there were human shredding machines. They started at your toes to maximize the suffering.”
These are the stories American readers will not find in newspapers, he continued.
Bremer then expressed disappointment that the media attention has given no attention to Hitler as Saddam’s blatant inspiration.
“In one of the libraries we found 700 copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. This was mandatory reading for all Iraqi diplomats,” he said. “Don’t tell me the Iraqis were more happy before the American intervention.”
Bremer, who worked for the State Department for 23 years, was sent to Iraq in May 2003 as the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. After 14 months, when Iraq became sovereign, he returned to the United States and documented his experiences.
Bremer also addressed why he believed reconstruction in post-war Iraq has been more difficult than some anticipated.
“The Iraqis went from the most brutal regime of Saddam Hussein to total freedom in just three weeks. Basically the entire population was suffering of a Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome,” he said, adding that Saddam had been in power three times as long as Hitler and the Iraqi people are still in the recovery stages.
And now, three years after U.S. troops entered the war in Iraq, administrators are still fighting over the legal precedents of the war and if weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq.
During the question and answer session that followed Bremer’s address, the atmosphere tensed when one guest said the government was lying about Iraq’s weapons capabilities, which drew an agitated response from Bremer.
“The fact that we did not find weapons did not mean they were not there. Don’t call me a liar unless you are able to back that up,” Bremer said, pointing at the attendee.
Bremer claimed Iraqis are increasingly hopeful for the future. A poll in June of 2004 showed that 55 percent of the Iraqis were hopeful for the future, and the same poll conducted in December of 2005 showed this number increased to 71 percent, while most Americans think that the situation in Iraq is becoming worse.
Bremer also tried to defend President George W. Bush, whom he met, saying that he convinced the President to keep troops in Iraq until the nation was stabilized.
“The president knew that it might cost him the elections, but he had to do what is right for Iraq in 20 years,” he said, adding that the results in the long term will prove whether he was right.
Bremer concluded that patience was the whole point of the mission.
“I am optimistic for the future of Iraq, for the benefits of stabilization will be enormous,” he said. “The only thing Americans need to do, is to be patient … but I know that that is one of our lesser qualities.”
Bremer’s arguments were an attempt to counter politicians and anti-war advocates who claim the war in Iraq lacked adequate justification.
“I think it’s clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence [that would justify a war on Iraq, namely the possible existence of weapons of mass destruction] that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart,” said Hans Blix, who oversaw the United Nations investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, in a March, 2004 interview with the Associated Press.