A London-based Arabic-language newspaper says Paul Bremer’s speedy departure from Iraq the same day as the turnover of power to the new Baghdad government is because he left a 35-year-old Iraqi lover behind.
 Paul Bremer |
Bremer, 63, is married with two children. He spent a year in Iraq as the U.S. administrator overseeing the transition to autonomy, which came two days before yesterday’s deadline set by President Bush.
Bremer did surprise many, including most of his staff, by leaving the same day for the United States.
According to the report in Al-Hayat, the unnamed woman worked in the presidential protocol office during former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s term. She continued to be employed by the Americans due to her English-language skills, the report said.
The woman, the paper added, recently moved her family to the so-called “Green Zone” – a heavily guarded area of closed-off streets in central Baghdad where U.S. authorities live and work. Only three days ago, she moved them to the Jordanian capital of Amman before their expected departure to the United States, the report said.
According to Al-Hayat, the woman told relatives that her romantic relations with the top U.S. official in Iraq would “lead to marriage.”
Born in Connecticut, Bremer was educated at Phillips Academy and at Yale University and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard in 1967. That year he joined the Foreign Service as officer general in Afghanistan, later continuing his education at the Institut d’?tudes politiques de Paris, where he earned a certificate of political studies.
During the 1970s, Bremer held various domestic posts with the State Department, including posts as assistant to Henry Kissinger from 1972-76. In 1981 he became executive secretary and special assistant to Alexander Haig.
Bremer retired from the Foreign Service in 1989 and became managing director at Kissinger Associates, a worldwide consulting firm founded by Henry Kissinger. More recently he has been employed as chairman and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, a risk and insurance services firm which is a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.
Bremer was appointed chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism by House Speaker Dennis Hastert in 1999. In late 2001, along with former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Bremer co-chaired the Heritage Foundation’s Homeland Security Task Force, which created a blueprint for the White House’s Department of Homeland Security.
