HunterByrd

Paul Bremer: What I said.

By now, you've heard it at least a few times on NPR, and elsewhere in the MSM: Paul Bremer, the former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, said there had never been enough troops in Iraq to accomplish the mission. As the Dems are wont to do, they took that little snippet and are running with it, frothing at the mouth with glee!

This high-RPM spin might not ever slow, but Mr Bremer has a piece in the NYT op-ed pages today, and he does what he can.

It's no secret that during my time in Iraq I had tactical disagreements with others, including military commanders on the ground. Such disagreements among individuals of good will happen all the time, particularly in war and postwar situations. I believe it would have been helpful to have had more troops early on to stop the looting that did so much damage to Iraq's already decrepit infrastructure. The military commanders believed we had enough American troops in Iraq and that having a larger American military presence would have been counterproductive because it would have alienated Iraqis. That was a reasonable point of view, and it may have been right. The truth is that we'll never know.

That's what I like about a level head: it speaks truth, whether good or ill. When pressed, I don't blame him for speaking more of the truth than 'soft-body' liberals care to hear.

The president was right when he concluded that Saddam Hussein was a menace who needed to be removed from power. He understands that our enemies are not confined to Al Qaeda, and certainly not just to Osama bin Laden, who is probably trapped in his hide-out in Afghanistan. As the bipartisan 9/11 commission reported, there were contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime going back a decade. We will win the war against global terror only by staying on the offensive and confronting terrorists and state sponsors of terror - wherever they are. Right now, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Qaeda ally, is a dangerous threat. He is in Iraq.

No, the spin will not stop; it's an election year. But at least Bremer has gone on the record. At least he has spoken and his own words can be used to blunt opportunistic candidates who want to win for themselves at the expense of sound policy.

Mr. Kerry is free to quote my comments about Iraq. But for the sake of honesty he should also point out that I have repeatedly said, including in all my speeches in recent weeks, that President Bush made a correct and courageous decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutality, and that the president is correct to see the war in Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism.