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Tue Oct 5, 2:46 PM ET Politics - AFP WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's undiplomatic bursts of candor are making him the loose cog in a well oiled Republican campaign machine to re-elect President George W. Bush (news - web sites). Latest headlines: · White House on Defensive After Bremer Talk AP - 4 minutes ago · Two US officials embarrass Bush on Iraq AFP - 5 minutes ago · CIA Report Finds No Conclusive Zarqawi-Saddam Link Reuters - 12 minutes ago Special Coverage In recent weeks, Rumsfeld has been strikingly at odds with the official line on Iraq (news - web sites) issues. Some of his statements have been corrected later, usually by other administration officials. His latest trip-up was telling foreign policy experts Monday that he had seen no "strong, hard evidence" linking former president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) to al-Qaeda. He appeared to back away from a key rationale for the war in Iraq. Rumsfeld later issued a statement saying there had been a misunderstanding. But he did not disavow the comment. On September 24, at a time when Bush was emphasizing that he would "stay the course" in Iraq, he raised eyebrows by suggesting that US forces could begin to withdraw from Iraq before the country was at peace. "Any implication that that place has to be peaceful and perfect before we can reduce coalition and US forces would obviously be, I think, unwise because it has never been peaceful and perfect, and it isn't likely to be," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld stirred a greater controversy the day before when he told congressmen that if violence meant elections could not be held everywhere in Iraq by January, "Well, so be it." An imperfect election, he said, was better than none. Those comments came as Bush had sought to ease concerns about Iraq. On the same day Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had offered similar assurances that Iraq's elections in January would be successful in a rare address to a joint session of Congress. Rumsfeld is no stranger to political campaigns, having once run for his party's presidential nomination and served as a White House chief of staff. But he has noticeably cut back his appearances before the Pentagon (news - web sites) press, leading to speculation that the White House wants him in the background. Rumsfeld often deflects political questions, telling reporters he and Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) are under orders to stay out of politics, and to stick with their portfolios. Although out of synch with campaign politics, Rumsfeld's remarks sometimes seem to surprise because they more closely reflect the uncomfortable truths about Iraq. Before the Council on Foreign Affairs in New York on Monday, Rumsfeld alluded to changes in US intelligence assessments, suggesting that the intelligence he relied on before the March 2003 invasion may no longer be valid. "I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way," he said after being asked about the connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. Knight-Ridder newspapers reported Tuesday that a re-assessment by the intelligence community has concluded there was no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the leader of a group that has claimed several beheadings in Iraq. Before the war, administration officials pointed to Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad as evidence that Saddam was harboring Al-Qaeda. Rumsfeld said there were differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said. In September 2002, Rumsfeld said there was solid evidence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, including some who had been to Baghdad, and reliable reporting of senior level contacts going back a decade. Larry DiRita, the Pentagon spokesman, said Rumsfeld was drawing a distinction between hard evidence and the intelligence analyses before the war. "He knows that the CIA (news - web sites) is going through to reassess all its conclusions prior to the war," the spokesman told AFP."And also to refresh what they think those connections are, and that's what he was talking about." But he said Rumsfeld had no reason to believe the CIA's assessment is different now than what it was before the war. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041005/pl_afp/us_iraq_rumsfeld&cid=1521&ncid=1963&sid=96378801 |
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