Bremer, (Lewis) Paul (1941- )

US diplomat and counterterrorism official, director of post-war reconstruction and humanitarian assistance in Iraq 2003-04. He replaced Lt-Gen Jay Garner as the top civilian administrator of Iraq in May 2003. Reporting to US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bremer's role was to oversee the US-led occupation of Iraq until such time as the transition could be made to Iraqi self-rule. He was empowered to issue decrees and oversee reconstruction efforts and the creation of new institutions and governing structures. In July 2003 he appointed an Iraqi interim governing council, but had veto powers over its proposals. He faced major challenges in restoring law and order and power supplies, and in dealing with Islamic terrorists seeking to foment civil war in a nation with serious ethnic and religious divisions. He remained in charge until the formal return of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government on 28th June 2004.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Bremer studied at Yale and Harvard universities, where he secured an MBA, before joining the US Diplomatic Corps in 1967. He remained in the Corps for 23 years under six secretaries of state, serving at the US embassies in Afghanistan, Malawi, and Norway, and as a special assistant to Henry Kissinger 1972-76 and to Alexander Haig in the early 1980s. He was named ambassador to the Netherlands by President Reagan in 1983, and ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism in 1986. On retiring from the Foreign Service in 1989, he became a managing director of the Kissinger Group, a consultancy on international issues, until 2000. As a leading expert on crisis management and terrorism, he was appointed chair of the National Commission on Terrorism in 1999.