The Problem with Jay Garner

"Most of the guys are former military, and you make a lot of money."

- Jay Garner explaining to the New York Times why he likes working at SY Coleman (April 15, 2003).

"He was part of a group of senior officers who were lying about Patriot's performance."

- Theodore A. Postol, MIT expert in missile technology.

Jay Garner has already inflamed the Middle East. Here's the problem with Jay Garner:

Garner is a weapons dealer, not an experienced diplomat.

Garner is still, despite his post in the Middle East, the President of SY Coleman, which provides technical support for missile systems currently in use in the Iraq war. No matter your feelings about this war, appointing a weapons dealer to the role of peacemaker is a recipe for whipping up anti-American feeling in the Middle East.

To give you a flavor of Garner's style, here's what he wrote in Army magazine: "While the idea that lasers could be used effectively to conduct lethal engagements was promoted vigorously during the heyday of President Reagan's Star Wars program in the 1980s, the reality of using high-energy lasers in killing systems has finally come of age."

He told the New York Times that "If President Bush had been president we would have won" the Vietnam war (April 15, 2003).

Garner exemplifies the revolving door between the Pentagon and weapons dealers.

Garner, who owns a million-dollar home in Orlando, Florida, made money by doing business with his former military command.

Garner and SY Coleman will soon be sued by competitor DESE Research, which claims that Garner slandered DESE executives in meetings with military contracting officials who had been in Garner's command in order to win the contracts for SY. "Jay's very aggressive and did what he could to pull contracts, even if that meant pulling strings," a former high-ranking industry executive told the Nation Magazine (April 28, 2003).

A friend of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Garner was named president of SY Technology (now called SY Coleman) in 1997 - despite having almost no experience in business. Biff Baker, a former lieutenant colonel at Army Space Command, accused SY Coleman of having received $100 million in contracts solely because of Garner's Pentagon connections. SY sued Baker for defamation and the lawsuit was settled out of court in January, 2003.

Garner is closely tied with failed weapons programs - and may have lied to Congress.

Garner was Reagan's top man on Star Wars and, after the 1991 Gulf War, told Congress that the Patriot missile defense system a success - even though it knocked down just one out of 88 Scud missiles the Iraqis launched at Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to the General Accounting Office. According to acclaimed MIT professor and missile expert Theodore A. Postol, "He was arrogant and very discourteous. He was part of a group of senior officers who were lying about Patriot's performance." (Quoted in Washington Post, April 11).

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