WASHINGTON, 5 September 2003 — Former US Army Secretary Thomas White, forced out by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in April, yesterday criticized the Bush administration for inadequate preparations for post-war Iraq.
“It’s clear that not enough time was spent in planning the post-combat phase of this operation, and that no one, me included, realized the enormity and the complexity of the tasks that had to be concluded,” White said on ABC television’s “Good Morning America.”
White, who was the Army’s top civilian, said in his book “Reconstructing Eden,” released on yesterday, that administration policy threatens to turn the US-led war against Iraq into a “potential humanitarian, political and economic disaster.”
White said Vice President Dick Cheney had made statements before the war in which he said he expected US troops would be welcomed with open arms. “But if you look at the first four months of results there have been some good things but there have been some disappointments as well.”
White’s comments came as Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad on a trip to the Gulf region for what he called a “first hand sense” of developments in Iraq while US troops battled Iraqi guerrillas in Saddam Hussein’s hometown.
The defense secretary, speaking to reporters on his plane to the Middle East, said more American forces were not needed in Iraq, but called for more Iraqi and international involvement in security.
While Washington prepared for intense talks at the United Nations on a resolution to get more countries to contribute soldiers to the US-led occupation in Iraq, Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to send an extra 5,000 soldiers to Iraq or risk “strategic failure”.
Unremitting assaults on US-led troops and a spate of recent bomb attacks were likely to be on Rumsfeld’s agenda when he meets senior military leaders in the Gulf region.
