WASHINGTON, Jan 21: The United States has tapped a retired army officer — Maj-Gen Jay M. Garner — to head the Pentagon office planning for a post-Saddam Hussein administration in Iraq.

Garner is “beginning the process of thinking through all things necessary for Iraq,” Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Reserve Officers Association conference in Washington on Monday.

Rumsfeld once again laid out the administration’s case against Saddam and sounded a warning note that war was drawing nearer — within weeks, rather than months.

“Clearly, in the case of Iraq, we are nearing the end of a long road, where every other option has been exhausted,” Rumsfeld said. “No one wants war.... Either they will cooperate or they won’t. And it won’t take months to make that judgment.”

Garner has experience directly applicable to the job. Just after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then- Maj-Gen Garner commanded a task force comprised mostly of Marines that created a welcome station for more than a million Kurds fleeing an Iraqi crackdown.

He was also responsible for facilitating their eventual return back to their homes. In doing so, Garner worked closely with non-governmental organizations to quickly extricate the US military from long-term humanitarian work.