CYA Files

And so it begins…

L. Paul Bremer III, former head of the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq, said Monday that the United States did not deploy enough troops and then failed to contain violence and looting immediately after the ouster of President Saddam Hussein.

Bremer, administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority until the hand-over of political power June 28, said that he still supported the decision to intervene in Iraq but that a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

“We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he told an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. “We never had enough troops on the ground.”

Bremer’s comments echoed contentions of other critics of the Bush administration, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who say the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion.

On Sept. 17 at DePauw University, Bremer said, “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, according to the Banner-Graphic in Greencastle, Ind

[…]

“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 applied 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.”

(Hahaha! Yes, If only we’d had more Iraqi security forces available to address the looting. Surprisingly, they thought we an invading army at the time and didn’t rush to help. Particularly since they would have been shot.)

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded Monday that U.S. intelligence was wrong in its conclusions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and appeared to back off earlier statements suggesting former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda.

“Why the intelligence proved wrong (on WMDs), I’m not in a position to say,” Rumsfeld said in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “I simply don’t know.”

When asked about any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, Rumsfeld said, “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.”

But a short time later, Rumsfeld released a statement: “A question I answered today at an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations regarding ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq regrettably was misunderstood.

“I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

When the handwriting is on the wall, it’s prudent to get your “true” position on the record before anyone thinks you were responsible for the failure.