ABC [Australia] : White House denies understating Iraq violence

White House denies understating Iraq violence

September 30, 2006

The White House has denied wilfully understating violence in Iraq, one of a barrage of charges stemming from a new book that reportedly paints top US officials in disarray over the war.

At issue is State of Denial, the new tome by veteran journalist Bob Woodward, whose reporting on the Watergate scandal three decades ago helped force then-president Richard Nixon to resign.

According to the Washington Post, where Woodward is an assistant managing editor, the writer found that the Pentagon in May predicted in a secret intelligence estimate that violence in Iraq would increase through 2007.

And in a recent interview with CBS television, Woodward also said that US President George W Bush's administration was keeping secret that the frequency of attacks on US troops in Iraq has sharply increased.

"Nobody's tried to mislead anyone about it," countered Mr Bush's spokesman Tony Snow, who declined to spell out whether US forces are facing more or fewer attacks because "classified briefings remain classified".

"I can neither confirm nor deny" that US troops are attacked every 15 minutes, said the spokesman.

"Sometimes the attacks go up and sometimes they've gone down."

Mr Snow confirmed Woodward's claim that Mr Bush has been taking advice on the strategy for Iraq from Henry Kissinger, the controversial Vietnam war-era national security adviser turned secretary of state.

"The role is not an extraordinary one," the spokesman said after speaking to Dr Kissinger.

"The President has a lot of people in, and he listens to them, and Dr Kissinger was one of them."

"Dr Kissinger says he agrees with the overall thrust of American policy. He thinks we're doing the right things. He said he also may have times when he disagrees on details," Mr Snow said.
Internal feuding

On another front, Mr Snow denied that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld feuded to the point that he would not return her telephone calls.

"I talked with secretary Rice today and her quote was, 'This is ridiculous, and I told that to Woodward'," said Mr Snow, who added that Dr Rice and Mr Rumsfeld take part in a daily telephone call with the national security adviser.

He stopped well short of denying another bombshell reportedly in Woodward's book: that former White House chief of staff Andrew Card had twice pushed Mr Bush to fire Mr Rumsfeld.

Mr Snow said he had not yet spoken to Mr Card about the claim, but stressed: "It's typical, as a matter of fact, quite often in administrations at this point people are asked to submit their resignations".

"People serve at the pleasure of the President. If tomorrow the President decided that he didn't want Don Rumsfeld to serve as secretary of defence, Don Rumsfeld would no longer serve as secretary of defence," he said.
Rebuttal

Mr Bush on Friday accused critics who say the Iraq war has fuelled terrorist recruitment of buying into "the enemy's propaganda".

Democrats have seized on a US Government report that the conflict fuels global terrorist recruitment to contradict Mr Bush's longstanding claim that the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has made the world safer.

"This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we're provoking them," Mr Bush said.

"Iraq is not the reason the terrorists are at war against us.

"If that ever becomes the mind set of the policymakers in Washington, it means we'll go back to the old days of waiting to be attacked and then respond."

- AFP/Reuters