Native Utahn and longtime Washington insider Tom C. Korologos has been named senior counselor to L. Paul Bremer III, who arrived in Baghdad today to head the reconstruction effort in that country.
Korologos served presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford as deputy assistant for legislative affairs and for nine years was an aide to former Utah Sen. Wallace F. Bennett. During the transition periods for both Ronald Reagan and George W.H. Bush, he was their liaison for congressional relations. He was senior adviser to Robert Dole in the latter's unsuccessful presidential bid in 1996. Most recently, he volunteered his services to the Bush-Cheney transition and managed the confirmation of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. His appointment to the Iraq assignment came through the Department of Defense.
A company Korologos helped to found, Timmons & Company, made the announcement. The firm has been a model for business-government relations, offering consulting services to high-profile politicians and lobbyists. Korologos could not be contacted by telephone early today.
He was born in Salt Lake City to Greek immigrant parents and graduated from West High School and the University of Utah. He was a sportswriter for the Salt Lake Tribune in 1961, when he left to join the David W. Evans advertising agency. When he was assigned as an employee of the ad firm to find a press relations assistant to Bennett, he looked over the prospects, then recommended himself, and his extensive career in Washington politics was launched.
He was Senate liaison to Nixon when the Watergate scandal erupted and remained friends with the fallen president after he resigned his office.
Recently, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the U. He earlier had been accorded a Distinguished Alumni award.
Korologos' new boss took over the task of piecing Iraq together today amid a change in key posts responsible for guiding it toward democracy.
"We intend to have a very effective, efficient and well-organized hand-over," Bremer said as he arrived at Baghdad International Airport.
Bremer traveled with Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the man Bremer is replacing as the senior American civilian in Iraq, retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner.
"General Garner and I are pledged to working very close together," said Bremer. "I don't anticipate any problems with any of the changes that are ongoing."
Bremer's arrival reflects a turn to new leadership at the top as the civilian reconstruction agency makes inroads to restore law and order and government functions, even as many ordinary Iraqis complain about persistent insecurity and the slow pace of resuming basic services like power and water.
"It's a wonderful challenge to help the Iraqi people basically reclaim their country from a despotic regime," Bremer said in a tarmac interview minutes after his plane landed in Basra.
He spent a short while in the southern city before flying to Baghdad, where the civilian reconstruction agency is headquartered.
Asked whether he was, in effect, directing a U.S. plan to colonize Iraq, Bremer said: "The coalition did not come to colonize Iraq. 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."
Attempting to smooth over implications that his replacement of Garner represented a shifting policy, Bremer said in Basra, "I also want to say how proud I am of the work my good friend Jay Garner and the people who are working for him, how proud I am of everything they have done here in the last couple of weeks under extraordinary circumstances."
Reacting to reports that Garner would be leaving the country earlier than originally planned, Bremer said, "I certainly intend to work with him
in the next weeks here to get a bunch of serious milestones accomplished."
Standing beside Bremer, Garner said the reports that he would be leaving early are "not true."
"What I say we have here is one team, one fight," said Garner. "We'll drive on."
Bremer said former U.S. ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was coordinator for central Iraq, including Baghdad, within the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, was being reassigned back to Washington by the State Department "for their own reasons."
The New York Times, citing unidentified administration officials, reported in Monday's editions that four other officials under Garner were also expected to leave soon: Margaret Tutwiler, who had been head of communications; Tim Carney, who had been overseeing Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals; David Dunford, a senior Middle East expert; and John Limbert, the ambassador to Mauritania.
Neither Bremer nor Garner commented on that report, but Tutwiler told a reporter the plan from the beginning was for her to be in Iraq for one month, until May 15, and then return to her post as ambassador to Morocco.
Following the U.S.-issued decree on Sunday dissolving Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, Bremer was said to be considering issuing additional orders dissolving Saddam's former defense and security apparatus, including the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard that were loyal to him.
Myers alluded to these next steps in ridding Iraq of all vestiges of the ousted regime.
"There is absolutely no chance that Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party or those who are following Saddam Hussein are ever going to come to power again in Iraq," Myers said.
Bremer, 61, is a onetime assistant to former secretaries of state William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger and was ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism from 1986 to 1989.
In Basra, Bremer was meeting with British officials who are responsible for establishing order in the city. Myers was meeting with British commanders and having lunch with their troops. In some ways, including availability of electric power, Basra is further along in recovery than Baghdad.
In Qatar on Sunday, Myers said the U.S. military is pulling out of one Qatari air base and upgrading another.
The moves reflect the suddenly changed circumstances for American forces since the demise of the Saddam regime.
Myers told troops at Qatar that the American presence at an air base called Camp Snoopy would "go away" soon. Snoopy served as a logistics hub for U.S. military operations in the Gulf region.
E-MAIL: tvanleer@desnews.com