:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 10.05.2004 ::

:: "White House on Defensive After Bremer Talk" ::

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House staunchly defended its Iraq policy Tuesday as new questions emerged about President Bush'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 pounced on the acknowledgment by former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer Monday that the United States had "paid a big price" for insufficient troop levels.

Bremer, who shot into the national headlines with his remarks, softened his comments during a speech Tuesday in Michigan.

"We certainly had enough (troops) going into Iraq, because we won the war in a very short three weeks," he told an audience of more than 400 people at Michigan State University.

"The point that I have been making, and that has gotten a little bit distorted in the press recently, is that, as I look back now, I believe it would have been better to stop the looting that was found right after the war.

"One way to have stopped the looting would have been to have more troops on the ground. That's a retrospective wisdom of mine, looking backwards," he added. "I think there are enough troops there now for the job we are doing."

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.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 10:55:00 PM [+] ::
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