NBC: Bremer calls Iraq's reconstruction long-term process

The reconstruction of Iraq will be a long-term process, Paul Bremer, the administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, said in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press July 20.

"The problem that we face is difficult, and that is reconstructing a country that really for 35 years was very badly managed, particularly on an economic basis, which suffered from political tyranny," Bremer said.

"The Iraqis have now begun to exercise their freedoms," he continued. "These are difficult times for us, but I think over the next 60 to 90 days we'll take some very important steps ... to try to turn the problem around on the security side, and get the economy moving, and to start showing progress on the political front."

Bremer said that the American people will need to be patient.

"I think we need to recognize that the job we've got is tough, we've got a strategy for dealing with it in the security, economic, and political fields," he said. "We're executing that strategy, it's going to take us time, it will cost money, and we will, unfortunately, have more casualties as we go forward. But, there's no question that we've done the right thing. We have the support of the vast majority of Iraqis for what we've done by freeing them from this tyranny, and we'll find in the months ahead and in the years ahead that this has been the right thing to do."