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White House on defensive after Bremer talk
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-06 08:52 The White House staunchly defended its Iraq policy
Tuesday as new questions emerged about US 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 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 remained out of sight and silent,
letting his surrogates answer Kerry's charges. His speechwriters polished an
address that administration aides said would be a sweeping indictment of Kerry's
policies on Iraq, the war on terrorism and the economy.
"It's a comprehensive look at two very different records, one of
accomplishment, and one of being on the wrong side of history over and over
again," Bush campaign communications director Nicolle Devenish said of the
speech.
"The president will talk about the choice we face in this election between
his commitment to success in the war on terror and John Kerry's record of voting
against measures to keep us safe, and attacking policies he once supported."
The address in the swing state of Pennsylvania was originally to focus on
health care, but the White House reversed course and made it about Iraq, seeking
to blunt a new report on the absence of weapons of mass destruction there before
the war.
Bremer, in a speech last month 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."
Military commanders believed the force level was adequate, said Pentagon
spokesman Larry Di Rita.
"Before, during and subsequent to Mr. Bremer's tenure, the military
commanders and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the level
of U.S. forces in Iraq was the appropriate level, and that was their
recommendation to the secretary of defense."
Kerry said he would listen to 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.
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 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 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.
McClellan's use of the phrase "begin pursuing those weapons" marked a new
attempt to gradually back off the administration's once-firm assertions on Iraq
possessing weapons of mass destruction — the main justification for the
invasion.
Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney 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.
Later, the officials said Saddam was pursuing them.
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