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.

Bush bemoans 'flawed' Iraq data - BBC News

President Saint George Tungsten Shrub have said he was disappointed in "flawed intelligence" in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Republic Of Iraq in 2003.

Mr Shrub said analysis of the stuff by many intelligence federal agencies had led to the "wrong conclusion" on arms of mass destruction.

In an interview with cyberspace portal Yokel and newspaper Politico, he also explained why he had given up golf.

"I believe playing golf game during a warfare just directs the incorrect signal," he said.

Carter criticised

Mr Shrub said he did not experience he had been misled on the intelligence on Iraq.

"'Mislead' is a strong word... Bash Iodine believe person lied to me? No, I don't. I believe it was just, you know, they analysed the state of affairs and came up with the incorrect conclusion."

Mister Shrub said the 2003 United Nations Bagdad violent deaths ended his golf

He said intelligence communities across the human race had shared the same assessment.

"And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was," he said.

Mr Shrub also said a United States disengagement of Republic Of Iraq or not maintaining "a forward presence" in the Center East would direct "all sorts of signals".

"It would agitate everybody's nerves, and it would embolden the very same people that we're trying to defeat."

Mr Shrub was also asked why he had not been seen on the golf game course of study for almost five old age and recalled the detonation at the United Nations central office in Bagdad in August 2003 that killed top United Nations envoy, Sergio Vieira Delaware Mello, and 21 others.

"I retrieve when Delaware Mello... got killed in Bagdad as a consequence of these liquidators taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf... and they pulled me off the golf game game game course of study and I said, it's just not deserving it anymore."

He said: "I didn't desire some ma whose boy may have got recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf."

Mr Bush, who have just begun a trip to the Center East, said he thought "we're on the right path to defining a Palestinian state".

The president also criticised former President Jimmy Carter, who said recently the adjacent United States leader should perpetrate to avoiding agonizing captives or invading states unless its ain security was threatened.

Mr Shrub said the United States did not torment and suggested Mister Howard Carter was advocating a policy of courting popularity.

"Popularity is fleeting... rules are forever," Mister Shrub said.

The president also touched on other key issues:

Global warming: "I could have got got supported a icky pact and everybody would have went, 'Oh, man, what a fantastic sounding chap he is'. But it just wouldn't have got worked."

Democrat-led Congress: "I would name them, so far, good at verbiage and not so good at results."

Burma: "It's taken these people too long to move. It's almost as if they're in a state of denial."

His legacy: "I believe history, when they look back, will state this is a chap who knew how to do decisions, and made some tough ones, stood by them, wasn't driven by the up-to-the-minute sentiment poll, but was driven by some core rules from which he would not deviate."

US Iraq commander tells Congress that Iraq is too fragile for further US troop pullouts soon

: The top U.S. commanding officer in Republic Of Iraq states in congressional testimony that hard-won additions in the warfare zone are too delicate to assure any troop disengagements beyond this summer, holding his land against impatient Democrats and refusing to perpetrate to more than backdowns before President Saint George W. Shrub go forths business office in January.

Army Gen. Saint David Petraeus painted a image Tuesday of a state struggling to stamp down force among its ain people and to travel toward the political rapprochement that Shrub said a twelvemonth ago was the ultimate purpose of a new Republic Of Iraq scheme that included sending more than than 20,000 other armed combat troops.

Security is getting better, and Iraq's ain military units are becoming more than able, Petraeus said. But he also ticked off a listing of grounds for worry, including the menace of a revival of Sunnite or Shi'Ite Moslem extremist violence. He highlighted Islamic Republic Of Iran as a particular concern, for its preparation and equipping of extremists.

In back-to-back appearances before two Senate committees, Petraeus was told by a parade of Democrats that, after five old age of war, it was past clip to turn over much more than of the warfare load to the Iraqis. Those senators said Republic Of Iraq will not achieve stableness until the United States make up one's minds to get withdrawing in big Numbers and military units the Iraqis to settle down their differences.

Republican Sen. Saint George Voinovich of Ohio, a longtime critic of the administration's warfare strategy, told Petraeus: "The American people have got had it up to here." Today in Americas

Petraeus responded, "I certainly share the frustration."

But when it came to promising or predicting a timetable for additional withdrawals, Petraeus would not budge. He said he had recommended to Shrub that he complete, by the end of July, the backdown of the 20,000 other troops. Beyond that, the general projected a 45-day time time period of "consolidation and evaluation," to be followed by an indefinite period of appraisal before he would urge additional pullouts.

The program gives Petraeus upper limit flexibleness at a clip of rising force in Bagdad and some other parts of the country. It runs counter to Democrats' pushing for a more than rapid decrease in the U.S. armed forces committedness and a faster transportation of duty to the Iraki government.

The hearing marked the start of two years of high-profile congressional visual aspects by Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. With the congressional and presidential elections in November, Democrats and Republicans were using the hearings to reason their opponent stances on the war. The two look Wednesday before commissions in the House of Representatives.

Among the senators making their lawsuit at Tuesday's hearings were the three presidential candidates: Republican Toilet McCain, who back ups keeping U.S. military personnel in Iraq, and Democrats Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who state they would convey soldiers home.

The Petraeus plan, which Shrub is expected to embrace, reflects a conservative attack that go forths of absence unfastened the possibility that roughly 140,000 U.S. military personnel could stay in Republic Of Iraq when the president leaves business office next year.

On Thursday Shrub will do a address about the war, now in its 6th year, and his determination about troop levels.

In exchanges with respective senators, Petraeus refused to state when he thought it would be safe to restart troop decreases beyond July without risking "fragile and reversible" security gains.

Asked Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, president of the Armed Services Committee: "Could that be a month, could that be two months?"

Petraeus began to respond: "Sir, it could be less than that. It could be. ..."

Levin: "Could it be more than than than that?"

Petraeus: "It could be more than that. Again, it's when the statuses are met that we can do a recommendation for additional reductions."

Levin: "Could it be three months?"

Petraeus: "Sir, again, at the end of the time period of consolidation and evaluation. ..."

On they went in that vein, even after a demonstrator — "Bring them home! Bring them home!" — interrupted the hearing and was escorted out.

When Sen. Evan Bayh, also a Democrat, started in again later, Petraeus said it would withstand logic to set up a timetable before knowing what statuses will be later this year.

"If you believe as I make — and the commanding officers on the land believe — that the manner forward on decreases should be conditions-based, then it is just level not responsible to seek to set down a interest in the land and state this is when it would be or that is when it would be," Petraeus said.

One of three senators who could be the new president by January, Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton, said much earlier, not in a response to Petraeus, that she disagreed with those who criticized lawmakers who are calling for an orderly withdrawal. 1 |

Bush Says Funding Iraq, Afghan Wars Is Congress's Top Priority

President Saint George W. Shrub said that
funding the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan should be Congress's
top precedence when it go backs to American Capital adjacent week, and he
lashed out at Democrats for not acting on his disbursement request.

''Continued hold in support our military personnel will soon get to
have a detrimental impact on the trading operations of our military,'' Bush
said in his weekly radiocommunication computer address today.

Congress, which go backs to work Dec. Three after a two-week
recess, hasn't acted on a $50 billion down payment on the $190
billion Shrub requested earlier this twelvemonth because the legislation
contains linguistic communication career for a troop backdown from Iraq. Senate Republicans have got blocked bulk Democrats from passing
the legislation, and Shrub have threatened to blackball any measure
that includes a backdown provision.

In response, Defense Secretary Henry Martin Robert Bill Gates have directed
the military service heads to begin planning for the layoff of
about 200,000 civilian employees and contractors by mid-February
if United States Congress doesn't O.K. a auxiliary support petition for
the warfares in Republic Of Iraq and Islamic State Of Afghanistan before money runs out Dec. 14.

The threatened furlough is a first for the Pentagon, which
in March and last twelvemonth temporarily transferred money from the
annual budget into wartime disbursement until United States Congress passed all of
an exigency disbursement bill.

''It is clip for the United States Congress to make its occupation and give our
troops what they necessitate to protect America,'' Shrub said in his
radio address.

Shrub also called on United States Congress to update the foreign
intelligence surveillance act, base on balls statute law to prevent
middle-income families from being topic to higher levies under
the option lower limit tax, and to complete its work on annual
spending bills.

So far, United States Congress have approved just one of the 12 annual
appropriations measures that finances authorities operations. Democrats
are seeking to stop a budget fighting with Shrub by drafting a single
catch-all measurement that incorporates a littler addition in domestic
spending than they had previously demanded.

To reach the newsman on this story:
Holly Rosenkrantz in American Capital at