Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and Baghdad's effective mayor, told the Post she was leaving Baghdad Sunday to fill a top post at the U.S. State Department in Washington.
The Post quoted senior U.S. officials as saying other top members of the reconstruction effort, including Garner, will leave Iraq soon.
"By the end of this month, you will see a very different organization," a senior U.S. official involved in the reconstruction told the newspaper.
Last week, President Bush appointed L. Paul Bremer III, a retired diplomat, to be the new civilian head of reconstruction efforts in Iraq. He was to be senior to Garner.
Before the war, Garner had said he would stay in Iraq for about three months.
Critics of the U.S. plan to rebuild Iraq said Garner, who headed the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, and his bosses at the Pentagon did not prepare well for the task to rebuild Iraq after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.
Much of Baghdad still lacks basic services such as electricity and water, and crime continues to be a problem.
The Post said the reported changes were a victory for the State Department, which had wanted a civilian to head Iraq's reconstruction efforts, over the Defense Department, which wanted military control over the program.
The Post said it was not yet clear why Secretary of State Colin Powell recalled Bodine, but speculated that when she was ambassador to Yemen, during the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000, she had criticized the FBI counter-terrorism unit's investigation of the case as heavy handed. Bremmer, the new head of Iraq's reconstruction, is a member of the counter-terrorism community.
Bodine will now be deputy director of the State Department's political-military division.
"I think so far we've had a good start, but we haven't hit our stride yet," she told the Post. "I'm not leaving with the sense that we've done everything we could have done, but I'm also not leaving with the sense that it's been a failure."
According to the Post, she suggested that her reassignment was a surprise.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
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