i went down very early on to see my counterpart in basra. who was deputy administrator to bremer and was in the c.p.a. command. >> we heard from -- >> and so i left

and to the extent that very little american money was going into m & d southeast, and the basra area. which led to the british deciding that quite early on that they had to bring in british money through -- british support for the military, and to create almost an independent sub administration in that part of iraq. i inherited that situation when i arrived. i went down very early on to see my counterpart in basra -- [inaudible] who was deputy administrator to bremmer and was in the c.p.a. command. >> we heard from him -- >> and so i left him most of the time to get on with his own operation, to report independently to london, to look for resources independently from london and to report to bremmer, but we saw each other's telegrams. we talked when necessary when we could help each other and i supported him with bremmer when he want that had, and i supported him with london less often when he need that had. but on occasion he did need to make an impact on london, because he didn't have enough resources. but on the whole, i think you should take my answer to indicate that we worked fai

worked fairly separately and we didn't have daily contact on what was going on from my point of view in basra and his point of view in the rest of iraq. . . >> my other question really is about john sawyer's pretty said the collation took a step forward in debasification. what is your assessment? >> the decree was done with before i got there within four days of the ambassador bremer arriving. i met the consequences of that. this was a balanced and understandable decision that the shia politicians in particular were strongly against bringing ex-baathists into the government council and ambassador bremer made quite a careful judgment of how far he could go with de-baathification. what didn't happen was to define people to run the government were not baathists and the decree was issued before a clear route had been found to filling positions in the minimum government of iraq. there was a mdecree defending the iraqi army. there was a failure to fill the gaps which those institutions performed in iraq through any otherafñ means which should have made them think about the wisdom of those two decre