A Bremer wall is a twelve-foot-high (3.7 m) portable, steel-reinforced concrete wall of the type used for blast protection throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. The name is believed to have originated from L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who was the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq following the Iraq War of 2003 in the early years of the Iraq War.[1]
The Bremer barrier resembles the smaller 3-foot (1 m) tall Jersey barrier, which is used widely for vehicle traffic control on coalition military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. To indicate that the Bremer barrier is similar but larger, the 12-foot (3.7 m) tall intermediate-sized Bremer barriers are usually referred to as Texas barriers (but not to be confused with the 3½ foot (1.1 m) Texas constant slope barrier). By this same naming convention, the largest barriers, which stand around 6 metres (20 ft) tall, are called Alaska Barriers. Unlike the Jersey barrier which has sloped-sides at the base, the Texas and Alaska barriers have a rectangular ledge (usable as a bench for sitting or resting) which is approximately knee high for a typical adult.
Alaska barriers are typically used as perimeter fortifications of well-established bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.[2]
These T-shaped walls were originally developed by the Israelis in the Israeli West Bank barrier. The term "T-wall" is commonly used by soldiers throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, due to their cross-sectional shape resembling an inverted letter T.
In 2011 a series of Bremer walls have been used to form a memorial wall for fallen US soldiers. The concrete is painted black with names in yellow.[3] The wall's design is based on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC.