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If L. Paul Bremer had treated plans for post-invasion Iraq with as much care as he reserves for his oil paintings, the world might be a better place. “I’m sort of a realist school, I guess you would say,” says Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority immediately after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, of his artwork. Six years ago, Bremer helped unleash an insurgency when he unilaterally dissolved the Iraqi army. Now he is studiously training to be an oil painter. “It’s difficult,” he says of his new work, “because I have to develop the skills that are not necessarily there, as far as I can tell.” The humbled diplomat is selling his images of barns, snowy fields, and more barns for up to $450 a pop.