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Jay Garner

Jay Montgomery Garner (born April 15, 1938) is a retired United States Army general who was appointed in 2003 as Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq but was soon replaced by L. Paul Bremer.^[1]

Born in Arcadia, Florida, Garner served a hitch with the Marines before attending Florida State University, where he received a degree in history in 1962. He also holds a Master's in public administration from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.

Commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1962, Garner served two tours in Vietnam, and later led two air defense units in Germany. He also served as deputy commander at Fort Bliss, Texas. Garner helped to develop the Patriot missile system and commanded missile batteries during the Gulf War. After the war he was put in charge of securing Kurdish areas in Iraq. He was later named commander of the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command (working primarily on President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative missile shield program), and concluded his Army career as Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, retiring in 1997 at the rank of lieutenant general.

After leaving the Army, Garner became president of SYColeman, a defense contractor which designs missile communications and targeting systems used in the Patriot and Arrow missile systems. (He has been on unpaid leave from the company since January 2003.) Garner served on a presidential panel, chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, which specializes in space and missile threats. He has also worked closely with the Israel Defence Forces.

In 2003 Garner was selected to lead the post-war reconstruction efforts in Iraq. He was regarded as a natural choice by the Bush administration given his earlier similar role in the north. Garner began reconstruction efforts in March 2003 with plans aiming for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a desert base. He was replaced in his role by Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates, on May 11th, 2003.

It has been suggested that Garner was moved aside because he did not agree with the White House about who should decide how to reconstruct Iraq. He wanted early elections - 90 days after the fall of Baghdad, and the new government to decide how to run the country and what to do with their assets. Garner said "I don't think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people. It's their country… their oil."^[2]

1. ^ US arms trader to run Iraq The Observer, March 30, 2003.
2. ^ Greg Palast, ” Unreported: The Zarqawi Invitation, ZNet, June 10, 2006

• General reverses his role San Francisco Chronicle, February 26, 2003.
• SYColeman company page
• PBS Frontline