THE United States did not have enough troops in Iraq immediately after the removal of Saddam Hussein and "paid a big price" for it, the former head of the US occupation there said. L. Paul Bremer said he arrived in Iraq on May 6, 2003, to find "horrid" looting and a very unstable situation. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Mr Bremer said during an address yesterdat in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to an insurance group, which reported his comments. "We never had enough troops on the ground."
But Mr Bremer said he was "more convinced than ever that regime change was the right thing to do". Despite the daily reports of violence, "I am optimistic about the future in Iraq", he said. In a statement last night to The Washington Post, Mr Bremer said he fully supported the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq. "I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq," he said in the e-mailed statement, according to today's edition of the Post. He said references to troop levels related to the situation when he first arrived in Baghdad "when I believed we needed either more coalition troops or Iraqi security forces to address the looting". |