U.S. specialist on Iraq was passed over for key post

U.S. specialist on Iraq was passed over for key post

By Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor Copyright by The New York Times

MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006

As the Bush administration's envoy for Iraqi politics, Zalmay Khalilzad had considerable experience dealing with Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein.

Before the war, Khalilzad was the White House's point man in meetings with Iraqi exile leaders in London and Kurdistan. After the shooting started, he was a key figure at political gatherings in Baghdad and at Iraq's Tallil Air Base to begin assembling a new Iraqi leadership.

So when the White House prepared to announce L. Paul Bremer's appointment as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq in May 2003, Khalilzad had every expectation that he would continue in his political role.

But just before the announcement, he learned he was not going to Iraq with Bremer after all. In fact, his Iraqi political portfolio was gone. The decision surprised not just Khalilzad, but also Colin Powell, then secretary of state, according to former State Department officials.

Why, Powell wondered, was the Bush administration excluding the one person who knew all the players and was trusted by them?

Powell telephoned Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush's national security adviser at the time, for an explanation. Rice replied that she had nothing to do with the decision.

In a White House meeting with Bush, Bremer had insisted on sole control of the occupation authority in Iraq as well as efforts to engineer a new government, Bremer notes in his recent book.

Jay Garner, who served as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq before Bremer's appointment, said the decision to exclude Khalilzad was a mistake.

"I thought it was absolutely tragic when Zal got edged out," Garner said in an interview. "He was damn good as a diplomat and my sense was that the Iraqis trusted him." While Bremer had experience on terrorism issues and was energetic, he had never served in the Middle East and had no nation-building experience.

In Baghdad, he made several decisions that he vigorously defends but which critics say proved fateful in slowing the rebuilding of the country and allowing violence to mount.

He dissolved the Iraqi Army and backed the White House policy of purging many Baath party members from government positions. And military officials complained that he was not committed to local elections.

When the U.S. Marines organized voting in Najaf, Bremer ordered the military to cancel it after concluding that a candidate he did not favor would win.

"When we denied Iraqis the opportunity to elect local officials," said Lieutenant General James Conway, "we were increasingly seen as occupiers."

After Bremer went to Baghdad, Khalilzad, who grew up in Afghanistan, was named ambassador to his native country. After Bremer left Iraq, and after a short tour by John Negroponte as the first U.S. ambassador after the handover of sovereignty, Khalilzad was appointed to replace Negroponte.

As a conservative strategist, Khalilzad was among those who pushed for tough action on Iraq.

In his current role, he has been the target of angry rebukes by some Iraqi Shiite politicians in recent weeks, as sectarian violence has heightened the threat of civil war. Using his hands-on, personal diplomacy, he has continued to press the Iraqi politicians forming the new government to name a nonsectarian figure to lead the Interior Ministry.

"He was very flexible," Garner recalled. "If something did not work out, he would try another path."

For Powell and his aides, the decision to exclude Khalilzad at a critical moment in the occupation demonstrated the administration's tendency to make important decisions without consulting key officials.

Neither he nor Rice, for example, were told in advance of the decision to dissolve the Iraqi military.

As he was preparing to leave office, Powell told Bush that the national security process was broken, according to former State Department officials who asked to remain anonymous because the discussion was private. Those aides said that it was not clear if the message registered.