Subject: [Homestead] Confession is good for the soul (if you have one)
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 09:56:41 -0700
Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels
Ex-Overseer of Iraq Says U.S. Effort Was Hampered Early On
By Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 5, 2004; Page A01
The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said
yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying
enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting
immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation
government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he
still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of
adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting
early on.
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"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an
atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an
insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We NEVER had
enough troops on the ground."
Bremer's comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many
administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John
F. Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately
to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion. Bremer has generally
defended the U.S. approach in Iraq but in recent weeks has begun to
criticize the administration for tactical and policy shortfalls.
In a Sept. 17 speech at DePauw University, Bremer said he frequently
raised the issue within the administration and "should have been even
more insistent" when his advice was spurned because the situation in
Iraq might be different today. "The single most important change -- the
one thing that would have improved the situation -- would have been
having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout" the
occupation, Bremer said, according to the Banner-Graphic in Greencastle,
Ind.
A Bremer aide said that his speeches were intended for private audiences
and were supposed to have been off the record. Yesterday, however,
excerpts of his remarks -- given at the Greenbrier resort at an annual
meeting sponsored by the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers -- were
distributed in a news release by the conference organizers.
In a statement late last night, Bremer stressed that he fully supports
the administration's plan for training Iraqi security forces as well as
its overall strategy for Iraq.
"I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq," he
said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches
to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in
May 2003 -- "and when I believed we needed either more coalition troops
or Iraqi security forces to address the looting."
He said that, to address the problem, the occupation government
developed a plan that is still in place under the new interim Iraqi
government.
Bremer also said he believes winning the war in Iraq is an "integral
part of fighting this war on terror." He added that he "strongly
supports" President Bush's reelection.
The argument over whether the United States committed enough troops to
the mission in Iraq began even before the March 2003 invasion.
Prior to the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said
publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower,
and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying
so. During the war, concerns about troop strength expressed by retired
generals also provoked angry denunciations by Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.
In April 2003, for example, Rumsfeld commented, "People were saying that
the plan was terrible and there weren't enough people and . . . there
were going to be, you know, tens of thousands of casualties, and it was
going to take forever." After Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld dismissed reports
of widespread looting and chaos as "untidy" signs of newfound freedom
that were exaggerated by the media. Rumsfeld and Bush resisted calls for
more troops, saying that what was going on in Iraq was not a war but
simply the desperate actions of Baathist loyalists.
In yesterday's speech, Bremer told the insurance agents that U.S. plans
for the postwar period erred in projecting what would happen after
Hussein's demise, focusing on preparing for humanitarian relief and
widespread refugee problems rather than a bloody insurgency now being
waged by at least four well-armed factions.
"There was planning, but planning for a situation that didn't arise," he
said.
A senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said
yesterday that Bremer never asked for more troops when he was the
administrator in Iraq -- except for two weeks before he left, when he
requested forces to help secure Iraq's borders.
Bremer said in his speech that the administration was clearly right to
invade Iraq. Though no weapons of mass destruction have been found, he
said, the United States faced "the real possibility" that Hussein would
someday give such weapons to terrorists.
"The status quo was simply untenable," he said. "I am more than ever
convinced that regime change was the right thing to do."
[Homestead] Confession is good for the soul (if you have one),
Tvoivozhd, 10/05/2004