{"id":2681,"date":"2004-10-05T09:29:26","date_gmt":"2004-10-05T14:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2681.html"},"modified":"2004-10-05T09:29:26","modified_gmt":"2004-10-05T14:29:26","slug":"bremer-apparently-joins-the-disgruntled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bremer-apparently-joins-the-disgruntled\/","title":{"rendered":"Bremer apparently joins the ‘disgruntled’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guess who thinks John Kerry’s right about the Bush’s pre-invasion failures<\/a> in Iraq?<\/p>\n

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.<\/p>\n

“We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. “We never had enough troops on the ground.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

In yesterday’s speech, Bremer told the insurance agents that U.S. plans for the postwar period erred in projecting what would happen after Hussein’s demise, focusing on preparing for humanitarian relief and widespread refugee problems rather than a bloody insurgency now being waged by at least four well-armed factions.<\/p>\n

“There was planning, but planning for a situation that didn’t arise,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s an odd venue for such an admission — an insurance conference in West Virginia? — but it’s encouraging to see Bremer acknowledge the reality that the White House won’t.<\/p>\n

Apparently, however, Bremer didn’t want the public to know his opinions about Bush’s misguided approach.
\n<\/p>\n

A Bremer aide said that his speeches were intended for private audiences and were supposed to have been off the record. Yesterday, however, excerpts of his remarks — given at the Greenbrier resort at an annual meeting sponsored by the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers — were distributed in a news release by the conference organizers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oops.<\/p>\n

Naturally, upon learning that the media was going to report his criticisms, which just happen to come at the height of a presidential campaign, Bremer immediately wanted the world to know how much he adores Bush.<\/p>\n

“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 related 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.” … Bremer also said he believes winning the war in Iraq is an “integral part of fighting this war on terror.” He added that he “strongly supports” President Bush’s reelection.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poor guy; Karl Rove probably threatened to burn down his house unless he got with the program.<\/p>\n

Of course, the White House could just do what they did to Anthony Zinni<\/a>, Rand Beers<\/a>, Paul O’Neill<\/a>, John DiIulio<\/a>, and Richard Clark<\/a> — dismiss Bremer as a “disgruntled former employee.” That’s the standard procedure for anyone who worked for Bush who dares to criticize his policies, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guess who thinks John Kerry’s right about the Bush’s pre-invasion failures in Iraq? The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Ambassador […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}