Former President George W. Bush recalled, “On January [20] 2003, I issued a [National Security] presidential directive, NSPD 24, creating a new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. ORHA was charged with turning our conceptual plans into concrete action. We based the office in the Pentagon, so that our civilian efforts in Iraq would run through the same chain of command as our military operations. To lead the office, [Secretary of Defense] Don Rumsfeld tapped Jay Garner, a retired general who had coordinated the military’s relief effort in northern Iraq in 1991. He recruited a cadre of civilian experts from across the government who would stand by to deploy to Baghdad.”
– George W. Bush, Decision Points, Page 249