Bush was advised of Bremer's call for more troops: Rumsfeld

[Barrett808]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush was advised that his top administrator in Iraq was calling for an additional 40,000 troops in mid 2004, but chose to heed the military instead, the US defense secretary said.

Ambassador Paul Bremer made the recommendation in a May 2004 memo to Rumsfeld several weeks before he stepped down as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said General Richard Myers, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took it up with service chiefs and military commanders who maintained that the existing troop levels were sufficient.

"I showed it to the president, made him aware of it, gave it to Myers. Myers took it to the tank, gave me a response," Rumsfeld said of Bremer's recommendation.

"I took it back to the president, showed him the response, and the president has suggested he preferred to go with the military judgments of the commanders on the ground," he said.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060112/pl_afp/usiraqmilitarybremer

[BikeWriter]

1. Gen. Zinni and Shinseki had advised ~300,000 BEFORE the attack!

That got Shinseki scorned at and fired.

[blm]

5. BushInc went into Iraq intending to PROLONG the war, not win and stabilize

it and turn it over to the Iraqis as quickly as possible.

There's no huge profit to be made by doing the job correctly.

[BikeWriter]

6. That's true. There's more money made in war than in peace.

That's why * 41 envoy lied to Saddam and convinced him to invade Kuwait. He got his war!

[rodeodance]

2. love to see the big shots shifting blame all about themselves. te he.

[babylonsister]

3. Circular finger pointing! nt

[NanceGreggs]

4. This is why Repubs always have more fun than any ...

... other group of people. All they need is TWO people in the room, and they can get up a good game of 'Pass-The-Buck' ...

[fooj]

7. Fucking cowards...the lot of them!

They can't take responsibility for their own craps!

Peace.

[gizmo1979]

8. another lie.

How many does that make now?How many times did Bish say"if they ask for more troops we'll provide them with more".