Interview with Dr. Gordon W. Rudd

Gordon Rudd, PhD, deployed in support of what would later become the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) and eventually the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was a professor of National Security Studies at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, specifically the School for Advanced Warfighting. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Jay Garner contacted him in January 2003 asking him to join a project. Rudd started working in the Pentagon full-time in mid-February 2003 and deployed with the main body of ORHA on 16 March 2003, arriving in Kuwait on 17 March 2003. He was in and about Kuwait, with two exceptions, until 20 April 2003, when Rudd deployed with Garner and a small inner circle into Iraq. Garner's brief tenure as the head of ORHA applied his small organization's staff against reconstruction and relief challenges planning to leverage Iraqis to meet these challenges. In this interview, Rudd comments on the leadership style demonstrated by Garner: military-style, command and staff procedures. After Garner's departure, Rudd stayed on with the CPA under the auspices of what is now the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (SIGIR) also as an historian. From this perspective, he provides a picture of the contrast between the ORHA leadership style and that of the CPA and Ambassador Paul Bremer: more succinct and with detailed work done well away from the often-large staff meetings. Rudd stated that he had produced 6,000-8,000 pages of transcripts from interviews conducted all about Iraq during his combined tenure as historian without staff portfolio. He also provides some comments about duties and personalities of some ORHA and CPA principals. Rudd discusses the respective relationships among headquarters, in and out of Iraq, to and from theater, from Garner's relationship with the Secretary of Defense to those of Ambassador Bremer and General Ricardo Sanchez, who became the commander of ground forces in Iraq. Combined and joint issues also receive some attention from Rudd, including the multinational makeup of the ground force component. He comments on the relationship between the US Army and Marines from 2003 to 2004, as well as provides his views on the different applications of the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). Rudd provides an interesting contrast between the bottom-up orientation of deployed battalion and brigade forces to dealing with Iraqi centers of influence, and the top-down approach of the CPA.