1
EstablishedFour writers alone (Meghan O'Sullivan, the General Counsel’s office, Scott Carpenter and Roman Martinez) wrote 795 of 3589 memos, 22% of what reached Bremer. Their main file: governance.
3,589memos to Bremer
651writers
80writers with 10+ memos
346memos in the busiest month (February 2004)
Who wrote to Bremer, and when
Nine findings from the log
2
EstablishedThe security file changed hands: Walt Slocombe (25 memos) last wrote on 2003-11-07, Bernard Kerik (15) on 2003-09-09. David Gompert first appears on 2003-12-14 and wrote 102, 94 of them on security.
DOD-96681122 · 7 November 2003 DOD-96681122 · 14 December 2003
3
EstablishedThe economy in two successive hands: Peter McPherson wrote 59 memos, all before 2003-10-25 (the last on small-business loans); then Olin Wethington from 2003-12-13 to the transfer of Central Bank accounts in June 2004.
4
EstablishedWashington’s voice faded: Donald Rumsfeld sent Bremer 60 memos up to November 2003 and only 22 after; the last, on 30 April 2004, on “a new organization to oversee detainee operations”.
5
EstablishedThe democracy & elections file peaked in February 2004 (105 memos), the month the Transitional Administrative Law was drafted: the titles are TAL drafts and negotiation sessions with the Governing Council.
6
EstablishedThe lawyers’ race before leaving: the General Counsel’s memos rose from 75 to 162; in June 2004 alone it sought Bremer’s approval of Orders 91, 93, 94, 95, 96 and 97, and of the “dissolution of the CPA”. Compare with the rhythm of issuance →
7
EstablishedThe rise of Roman Martinez: from 33 memos in the first eight months to 98 in the last seven, mostly read-aheads before Bremer’s meetings with Iraqi leaders.
8
Open questionHuman rights is the smallest file (8% of memos), peaking in April 2004 (45). Its last week has memos on the “legality of filming detainees” (25 April) and on a body to oversee detention (30 April), two days after the Abu Ghraib photos were published. Were they a response? The titles do not say.
9
EstablishedThreads to “The revolving door”: Bob Kelley wrote 10 memos to Bremer (December 2003 – June 2004), mostly on congressional visits; Housing Minister Baqir Jabr al-Zubaidi wrote to him on 8 April 2004. Open the revolving door →
Five files, five rhythms
Who owned which file
Every day in Bremer’s office
Method, confidence and limits
Source: the log of Bremer’s office memos released by the US Department of Defense under FOIA (in the archive: DOD-96681122). Each line gives the file date, the writer, those copied, the addressees, a subject code and the title. The log holds no memo texts, so everything here is about who wrote, when and on which file, not about what they wrote.
What we counted: memos addressed or copied to Bremer and not written by him (3,589 of 5,178 dated lines between April 2003 and June 2004; 73 undated lines and 19 out-of-range lines excluded). A jointly written memo counts for each writer.
Name resolution: spellings of one name (Megan/Meghan, Darell/Darrell, Ed/Edward, five spellings of the General Counsel’s office) were merged by rule — same surname and an equivalent first name — plus a short hand-checked list of typing errors. 193 spellings were merged; all are listed in the CSV.
Files: the log’s own codes: G governance, E economy & reconstruction, S security, D democracy & elections, H human rights & humanitarian. The meaning of D and H is inferred from their titles (elections, women, the TAL; human rights, mass graves, refugees), so it is “likely”. A memo may carry more than one code.
Limits: the log lists what was kept in the office’s files, not everything written; counts measure presence in Bremer’s papers, not influence itself. Roles on this page are inferred from the subject codes, not job titles. We show writers with 10+ memos (public officials) and do not show names that appear in titles.