Eric Mueller comments: DOUGLAS Feith’s statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on February 11, 2003 is available on the US Defense Department website. See also an article from the US magazine The Nation that deals with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).  Arabist Eric Mueller is this website’s expert on Middle Eastern affairs.

London: It is reported that the American General Jay Garner, the candidate to take over the post of civil administrator in Iraq after the change in regime, is close to the Zionist lobby and the ruling Likud party in Israel.

American Deputy Defense Secretary for Political Affairs, Douglas Feith, recently declared in testimony before the American Senate Foreign Relations Committee that retired general Jay Garner will head the department in charge of reconstruction and human assistance for Iraq in the Pentagon which will take on three chief tasks after the war in that country. They are:

1. Civil administration,
2. Humanitarian assistance,
3. Reconstruction.

Feith said in his testimony that General Garner will take over supervision of work inside Iraq in coordination with the Central Military Command that will run the war in Iraq.

Intelligence Review magazine reports that General Garner has strong ties with prominent personalities in the camp of pro-Israeli hawks in Congress, and that he has ties with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Garner was one of 26 military men who visited Israel recently, who issued a statement that stressed the importance for the United States of the Jewish state’s security, and said that a strong Israel represents a reserve that military planners and political leaders in the United States can count on.

Garner retired from the US Army in 1997 after having held the post of Assistant Vice Chief of Staff.

In 1991 Garner was one of the commanders of Operation Supply Comfort in northern Iraq, and was responsible for deploying Patriot missiles in Israel, according to Ha’aretz newspaper, before Operation Desert Storm.

Garner also held the post of Commanding General, United States Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, (i.e., the rocket program) between the years 1994 and 1996.

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