Monday, September 8, 2008

Rice defends Bush over Iraq claim - BBC News


US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have rejected claims from a former White Person House fourth estate adjutant that President Saint George Tungsten Shrub misled the United States over the Republic Of Iraq war.


Ms Rice refused to notice directly on the book by George C. Scott McClellan but said Mister Shrub had been "very clear" about the grounds for going to war.


She said the United States had not been alone in believing Republic Of Iraq was a serious threat.


Mr McClellan have accused Mister Shrub of a deficiency of openness and having relied on a "propaganda campaign" to sell the war.


His 341-page memoir, What Happened: Inside the Shrub White Person House and Washington's Culture of Deception, is to be published on Monday.


Extracts quoted by United States mass media give an often vituperative position of both the president and his highest-ranking aides.


From July 2003 to his surrender in April 2006, Mister McClellan was a loyal guardian of the Shrub administration. He had previously worked for Mister Shrub when he was Lone-Star State governor.


'Puzzled'


The book have provoked strong reactions from protagonists of the Shrub administration.


Ms Rice, speaking in Kingdom Of Sweden at an international conference on Iraq, told reporters: "I am not going to notice on a book that I haven't read.

If he believes he's going to ingratiate himself to his critics, he's sorely mistaken, and unfortunately, the lone friends he had, he just lost

Dan Bartlett


"But what I will state is that the concern about arms of mass devastation was the cardinal ground [for going to war]."


In the memoir, Mister McClellan pictures Multiple Sclerosis Rice as being "more interested in figuring out where the president stood and carrying out his wishes" than helping him understand the effects of war.


He states she "was somehow able to maintain her custody clean" but foretells that "history will likely justice her harshly".


Mr Shrub have yet to notice on the book himself, but White Person House spokeswoman Danu Perino issued a statement on Wednesday dismissing Mister McClellan as "disgruntled".


She added: "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was fourth estate secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the George C. Scott we knew."


Former senior Shrub advisor Karl Rove, now a political observer for Fox News, attacked Mister McClellan for not speaking up sooner if he had concerns about White Person House policies.


Former White Person House counselor Dan Robert Bartlett was also critical of his one-time colleague.


"If he believes he's going to ingratiate himself to his critics, he's sorely mistaken, and unfortunately, the lone friends he had, he just lost," Mister Robert Bartlett said, quoted by Reuters news agency.


Katrina mishandling


In his memoir, Mister McClellan states that Mister Shrub was not "open and forthright" on Republic Of Iraq and impeaches him of "rushing to warfare with inadequate planning and readying for its aftermath".

Mister McClellan criticises Mister Bush's handling of Republic Of Republic Of Iraq and Hurricane Katrina


Mr McClellan halts short of saying Mister Shrub lied about the grounds for going to warfare in Iraq - a warfare the former fourth estate adjutant Judges "not necessary" and a "serious strategical blunder".


However, the manner the Shrub disposal managed the Republic Of Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the usage of military unit would go the lone practicable option", he says.


Mr McClellan depicts White Person House staff as disbursement much of the first hebdomad after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 "in a state of denial".


He also impeaches former senior Shrub strategian Karl Rove and Jerry Lee Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney's former head of staff, of deceptive him about a Central Intelligence Agency leak lawsuit involving White Person House staff.

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