Posted on 10/05/2004 3:19:39 PM PDT by Max Combined
WASHINGTON - The White House staunchly defended its Iraq (news - web sites) policy Tuesday as new questions emerged about President Bush (news - web sites)'s prewar decisions and postwar planning: An impending weapons report undercut the administration's main rationale for the war, and the former head of the American occupation said the United States had too few troops in Iraq after the invasion.
Four weeks before Election Day, Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) pounced on the acknowledgment by former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer that the United States had "paid a big price" for insufficient troop levels.
Kerry said there was a "long list of mistakes" that the Bush administration had made in Iraq.
"I'm glad that Paul Bremer has finally admitted at least two of them," Kerry said, referring to postwar troop levels and a failure to contain chaos.
At a campaign stop in Tipton, Iowa, Kerry said the question for voters was whether Bush was "constitutionally incapable of acknowledging the truth" or was "just so stubborn."
In a rare day spent in Washington, Bush had no public appearances. Speechwriters polished an address that White House aides said would be a sweeping indictment of Kerry's Iraq policies, while Bush prepared for his second debate with Kerry on Friday.
Bremer last month, in a speech at DePauw University in Indiana, said he had raised within the Bush administration the issue of too few troops and "should have been even more insistent" when his advice was rejected.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to say if Bremer had pleaded with Bush for more troops, saying, "We never get into reading out all the conversations they had."
Bush consulted military commanders — not his hand-picked Iraq administrator — for guidance on troop levels, McClellan said, adding, "The lessons from the past, including Vietnam, are that we shouldn't try to micromanage military decisions from Washington."
In an unusual public acknowledgment of internal dissent, Bush campaign spokesman Brian Jones said Bremer and the military brass had clashed on troop levels.
"Ambassador Bremer differed with the commanders in the field," Jones said. "That is his right, but the president has always said that he will listen to his commanders on the ground and give them the support they need for victory."
Kerry said he would listen to both military and civilian leaders if elected.
"Commander in chief means you have to make judgments that protect the troops and accomplish the mission," Kerry told reporters in Iowa. "I would listen to all of my advisers and make the best decision possible."
The White House, meanwhile, sought to put the brightest face possible on the final report by the American weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, due out Wednesday. In earlier drafts, Duelfer found Saddam had left signs he had idle weapons programs he someday hoped to revive, but that Saddam did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and other top administration officials said repeatedly before invading Iraq that Saddam did have such weapons and that they posed a threat not only to Iraq's neighbors but to the United States as well. The weapons were the main justification for the invasion.
Even before Duelfer's final report was issued, McClellan said it bolstered the White House's assertions on Iraq.
The report will conclude "that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had the intent and the capability, that he was pursuing an aggressive strategy to bring down the sanctions, the international sanctions, imposed by the United Nations (news - web sites) through illegal financing procurement schemes," McClellan said. "The report will continue to show that he was a gathering threat that needed to be taken seriously, that it was a matter of time before he was going to begin pursuing those weapons of mass destruction," he said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ignited another brush fire Monday, saying he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" linking al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. He later backed off the statement and said he was misunderstood.
McClellan ticked off a litany of what he said were links between Iraq and al-Qaida. Both were "sworn enemies of the free world, including the United States," and both "celebrated the Sept. 11 attacks on America," he said.
"There are clearly ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida," McClellan said. "We know there were senior-level contacts between the regime and al-Qaida — the 9/11 commission documented that," McClellan said.
In fact, the Sept. 11 commission report said that while there were "friendly contacts" between Iraq and al-Qaida and a common hatred of the United States, none "ever developed into a collaborative relationship."
In a reflection of the political significance of Iraq, the White House changed gears on Bush's Wednesday speech, which originally was planned as an address on health care. Now the speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., will focus on the war, as well as the economy.
People remain about evenly split on Bush's handling of Iraq, polls suggest. But almost six in 10 say they do not think Bush has a clear plan for successfully resolving the Iraq situation. The same number say Kerry does not either.
Yo! Bremmer! STFU!
A BIG YAWN.
Let the democrats support bureaucrats running wars (a la Johnson and McNamara) and Bush/Cheney will allow the commanders on the battlefield to control the battlefield.
Define them and then pound the crap out of them.
John Kerry today decried the many mistakes made by the
Roosevelt administration in the first two years of the war.
He failed us at Pearl Harbor, and wake Island, he drove the japanese to war with his embargos.
American mothers are grieving tonight because of the mistakes made by this man, who doesn't even have a plan to win the peace with Japan.
Who want's to be the last man to die for this man's mistakes.
I STILL cannot imagine what Bremer was thinking...he SAYS he supports the president...but with friends like this...
Its the ego thing Mom, they all suffer from it. It is the rare man or woman that doesn't after experiencing those heights of power. Zell Miller comes to mind as one of those.
Amazing what whores these guys turn into when they've got to say something to make news.
I've lost all respect for L. Paul Bremer.
Let's see, Bremer, Bremer, Bremer. Nope. Not a military officer.
What did his janitor think?
Kerry neglected to say that Bremer is also on record (Aug 2003, IIRC) saying the opposite. Birds of a feather.
Here is an interview with Bremer where he said there were enough troops...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92423,00.html
To the appeasers in the Democrat party -- every action other than "stick your head in the sand and pray the economy remains strong and that your enemies take it easy on you"
is the beginning of a "long list of mistakes."
"United States had too few troops in Iraq after the invasion"
Wasn't that because the Turks wouldn't allow a HUGE section of our military to enter from the north ..?? And .. didn't this force us to transport them by ship over to Kuwait ..??
Also .. didn't this leave OPEN the exits from Iraq into Syria and Iran .. where all the WMD's could be taken ..??
Bremmer was probably right .. we didn't have enough .. but it wasn't from Bush/Rumsfeld's bad planning .. it was from the State Department's betrayal in the Turkish deal.
Even if this Bremer thing happened, it's still just a matter of opinion, and not provable. Who's to say if more troops would've significantly changed this aspect of the Iraq mission?
All indications are that he was simply giving his honest opinion, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that in and of itself. Presidents shouldn't get a free pass just because it's election season. But it also doesn't mean that just because Bremer says something, it must be true. Kerry's just making himself look all the more like an ass by trumpeting what he had to say, as though Bremer is all of the sudden an expert on whatever he happened to be talking about just because it contradicted Bush.
Yeah...I suppose you're right...but it's SO blatant..SO over the top. Of course he'll write a book...but good GOD MAN- couldn't you wait just a few more months before coming out with this opinion?
Ditto!!!!!!
I hope the White House knows that Bremer said just the opposite in August 2003.
Bremmer said on ABC some time ago that he NEVER REQUESTED ADDITIONAL TROOPS and didn't think he needed to.
AMBASSADOR L. PAUL BREMER: No, I've never made a request for more troops that's been agreed to. I never made a request for more troops. I agree with the CENTCOM Commander John Abizaid, who said earlier this week in a press conference that he believes we have enough troops here. I think that's right. It's not a question of more troops, it's a question of being effective with our intelligence, getting more Iraqis to help us. There are more than 50,000 Iraqis now working with us on security matters in the police and the border guards and the civil defense corps, and in the new Iraqi army. So Iraqis are more and more assuming responsibility for their security here.
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/bremer82403_abc.html
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