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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 13, 2003

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Baghdad, Iraq - The man chosen to lead U.S. efforts to put postwar Iraq on track to democracy, L. Paul Bremer, said upon his arrival in the capital yesterday that his goal is to help Iraqis "regain control of their own destiny" after decades of rule by Saddam Hussein.

Also yesterday, U.S. Central Command announced the capture of two more important Iraqis from the old regime: Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha, the scientist known as "Dr. Germ," and Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al Sattar Muhammad, a top leader in Hussein's armed forces.

In the new U.S. administration, Bremer, a former State Department official, is replacing retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner. Both men denied there was any premature breakup of the Iraq reconstruction group or that Garner was departing earlier than planned.

"What I say we have here is one team, one fight," Garner said at the Basra airport moments after he, Bremer and a Pentagon group led by Gen. Richard Myers landed. Garner did not answer directly when asked how long he would remain on the job.

Several staff members of the reconstruction office have left already or plan to. Margaret Tutwiler, who had been head of communications under Garner, said the plan from the start was for her to be in Iraq for one month, until May 15, and then return to her post as ambassador to Morocco.

Also, career diplomat Barbara Bodine, who was coordinator for central Iraq, was just reassigned back to Washington.

Bremer, in a pinstripe suit and tan desert boots, told reporters he was confident of success in the American-led effort to put postwar Iraq on track to self-government and prosperity.

"The coalition did not come to colonize Iraq," he said. "We came to overthrow a despotic regime. That we have done. Now our job is to turn and help the Iraqi people regain control of their own destiny."

He disputed the notion that there was trouble at high levels of the American reconstruction team.

"We intend to have a very effective, efficient and well-organized handover" of power, Bremer said.

In Tampa, Fla., Maj. Brad Lowell of Central Command said Taha, whom United Nations weapons inspectors nicknamed Dr. Germ, had surrendered over the weekend.

In a February interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Taha said she "played a major role in Iraq's biological weapons program in the 1980s and '90s, but it was only for self-defense and not for use."

Officials did not give details behind the capture of Muhammad, who was armed forces chief of staff since 1999. He was No. 11 on a list issued last month of the 55 most-wanted former Hussein officials.

In other developments yesterday, Iraqis pulled bound and blindfolded bodies out of a newly discovered mass grave outside the southern city of Basra, excavating a site thought to contain the remains of up to 150 Shia Muslims killed by Hussein's regime.

"We get new information about [mass graves] every day," said Sayed Haider al-Hussein, a mosque official in Basra, a Shia stronghold. "I feel a lot of anger and pain. Saddam has blood on his hands."

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Direct Link:
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