Iraq's New Chief?

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Jay Garner could soon be in charge of 23 million Iraqis.
FORTUNE
Monday, March 17, 2003
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum


Jay Garner is about to become the most important businessman you've never heard of. On leave from defense contractor L-3 Communications, he's on track to be the de facto governor of 23 million Iraqis after what looks like an inevitable U.S. invasion. Garner, 64, is an almost perfect fit for the job. As an Army general in 1991, he helped lead Operation Provide Comfort, which delivered food and shelter to Kurds in northern Iraq after the first Gulf war. He became well-known in military circles for espousing the then-unorthodox view that the military should be used as a "merciful instrument in shaping future humanitarian operations."

That's one reason his friend Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brought Garner back to the Pentagon in January to head the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which is working seven days a week to develop detailed plans for a post-Saddam Iraq. Insiders say Garner will implement those plans as the head of civil authority under General Tommy Franks.

Garner's civilian status is a big plus. After President Bush's heavy-handed walk-up to war, the last thing the U.S. needs is a modern-day General MacArthur rolling into Baghdad. And it will take someone with serious business know-how to "introduce a capitalist system where there's been central-control socialism since the 1960s," says Ariel Cohen, a foreign-policy expert at the Heritage Foundation. Garner has that too. He directed several major Defense Department programs, including Star Wars, a Rumsfeld favorite. After retiring as a three-star general in 1997, Garner became president of SY Technology, a Virginia provider of communications and targeting systems for missiles. SY was bought last year by L-3 Communications for a reported $48 million. After the merger, Garner ran an L-3 subsidiary that included his old company. "He put SY Technology on the map," says Gil Meyer, a retired Army general now working in the defense industry.

Colleagues describe Garner as hypercompetent, with a personal touch--a man who can solve tough problems without being overbearing. "He wouldn't dodge bullets; he'd bite them," says retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who served with Garner in the Pentagon. Adds Gordon Sullivan, president of the Association of the U.S. Army: "He wasn't so tightly wound that he couldn't see the humor in situations." He tells co-workers to call him Jay, not General. And he maintains a deep compassion for the Iraqis. He keeps framed on his office wall pictures drawn by the children he helped in the aftermath of the first Gulf war.

But revitalizing Iraq will depend on two factors beyond Garner's control: the ability of U.S. soldiers to pacify Saddam's troops and the willingness of allies to assist in reconstruction (the tab could reach $20 billion a year, experts say). The military part of the cleanup will be led by Franks's Arabic-speaking deputy, Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid. The rest--feeding the hungry, fixing the infrastructure, and creating a democratic government--will fall to Garner.