Bremer's father was president of the Christian Dior Perfumes Corporation in New York and his mother was a lecturer in art history at the University of Bridgeport.

He later continued his education at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, where he earned a Certificate of Political Studies (CEP).

[2] He accompanied Kissinger on shuttle diplomacy missions to Israel, Syria, and Egypt to resolve the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

[citation needed] Bremer was appointed chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism by House Speaker Dennis Hastert in 1999.

The constitution became controversial when the first draft submitted by the CPA suggested banning political parties opposed to the U.S. occupation from participating in elections; privatizing much of Iraq's industries and natural resources; and allowing the unelected Iraqi Interim Governing Council to sign a binding Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the United States.

In his farewell speech, broadcast on Iraqi television, he said, "I leave Iraq gladdened by what has been accomplished and confident that your future is full of hope.

[25] Bremer's April 18, 2005, visit to Clark University as a guest speaker led to protests against his role in the Iraq War.

[27] Another appearance, scheduled for the public library of his hometown, New Canaan, Connecticut, on January 18, 2006, was moved to the private St. Luke's School in the same town for fear for protests.

During a February 27, 2006 public appearance at Lynchburg College, where his sister-in-law is an assistant dean, Bremer insisted that his decision to disband the Iraqi Armed Forces was the correct one.

He also repeatedly defended his decision to expel Ba'ath Party members from government posts by comparing Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler.

He has also endorsed Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis, stating: "It is a fact of history that Europe is based on Judeo-Christian values.

[35] Bremer currently serves on the board of directors of BlastGard International, a Florida-based company that manufactures materials to mitigate the impact of explosions.

[43] Bremer appears in a viral internet meme, where his phrase "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him" following the capture of Saddam Hussein is used to accompany someone getting 'busted' or exposed, often with Breakbot's "Baby I'm Yours" playing in the background.

However, as Mark Danner reports in an essay in The New York Review of Books entitled "Iraq: The War of Imagination" from September 2006, American agents—including one colonel and a number of CIA operatives—had already begun meeting regularly with Iraqi officers in order to reconstitute the army as a working force.

This seems to concur with the position of the first Director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner, who Bremer had replaced.

As Bob Woodward reports in State of Denial, Garner, upon hearing of the order to disband the army, attempted to convince Bremer to rethink the dissolution.

"[51] The issue of disbanding the old Iraqi Army found itself, once again, the center of media attention with two articles explaining why Bremer ostensibly did not make the decision on his own.

The first press release by The New York Times included a letter written by Bremer to President Bush dated May 20, 2003, describing the progress made so far since Bremer's arrival in Baghdad, including one sentence that reads "I will parallel this step with an even more robust measure dissolving Saddam's military and intelligence structures to emphasize that we mean business."

[54] Charles H. Ferguson, director of critically acclaimed No End in Sight, created a video response to Bremer's op-ed on September 6, 2007.

[55] By order of the CPA, the top 1% of Iraqi Ba'ath Party members were forbidden from holding government positions, but were still permitted to open businesses and work at newspapers,[55] and all public sector employees affiliated with the Ba'ath Party were to be removed from their positions and be banned from any future employment in the public sector.

[56][57] When the CPA turned over enforcement of de-Ba'athification to Iraqi politicians, however, these rules were broadly expanded and used to punish political opponents, including nearly 11,000 teachers who were dismissed from the party and removed from government—a phenomenon which Bremer worked with the then-Education Minister to fix.

The external auditors management notes[64] point out that the CPA didn't perform a cash reconciliation until April 2004, eleven months into Bremer's mandate, when they started their work.

The external auditors reported that rather than use a modern double entry accounting system the CPA used what they described as "a single-entry, cash-based transaction list".

[69] This move was widely criticized as running directly counter to the Bush administration's announced goal of helping transform Iraq into a modern, democratic state.

Two days before he left Iraq, Bremer signed Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, which gave everyone associated with the CPA and the American government immunity from Iraqi law.

[74] Since then, violent events in Iraq involving American security companies such as Blackwater have triggered great resentment among Iraqi citizens, who view them as private armies acting with impunity.

But the turnover of political power a couple of days earlier was suggested by members of the Bush administration to thwart any plans the insurgency may have had for June 30.

U.S. intelligence sources had monitored chatter that suggested resistance elements were planning demonstrations, or outright attacks, to coincide with the time of the official handover.

[79] His early departure was disruptive to the smooth transition of authority, as the KPMG audit of the Development Fund for Iraq made clear.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called Bremer "the largest single disaster in American foreign policy in modern times," stating that he should have been relieved of his duties "no later than" September 2003.