Coalition Provisional Authority leader L. Paul Bremer wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post on September 8, 2003. It read: ” ‘Elections are the obvious solution to restoring sovereignty to the Iraqi people. But at the present elections are simply not possible.’ He outlined seven steps that Iraq would have to take on its path to self-government, including economic progress, ratification of a constitution, and then elections. Only after the completion of these steps, Bremer wrote, would the CPA relinquish control of the country. I [then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] thought to myself that a turnover could take years under Bremer’s policy–and if there were a stalemate at any step, it could take longer.”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Pages 522-523