Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

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Bush Says Iraq Is Now More Unstable Than Under Saddam, CBS Says

By Vincent Del Giudice

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush acknowledged that Iraq is more unstable now than when the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was in power, according to excerpts from the CBS program ``60 Minutes'' e-mailed to reporters by the network.

``Well, no question, decisions have made things unstable,'' Bush said in the interview recorded yesterday at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. ``I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better. No question about it.''

Bush, in what may be a final opportunity to salvage his strategy in an increasingly unpopular and costly war, announced on Jan. 10 that he is deploying 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to join the 132,000 U.S. military personnel already in Iraq. More than 3,000 U.S. troops have been killed since the start of the war in 2003.

The new troops will assist Iraqi forces in gaining control of the areas of Baghdad that are torn by fighting between Shiite and Sunni Muslims and in the fight against the al-Qaeda terrorist stronghold in Anbar province in western Iraq. Bush told CBS the violence in Iraq ``could lead to attacks here in America.''

`Debt of Gratitude'

Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, saying the U.S. ``liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude and I believe most Iraqis express that.''

``Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran,'' Bush said.

One of the justifications for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction. No chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were later found, and the country descended into what critics such as former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Illinois Senator Barack Obama, a potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, have characterized as a civil war.

``We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had,'' Bush said. ``But he was a significant source of instability.''

Bush also told CBS that the execution of the former Iraqi leader was mishandled. Images from a mobile-phone camera showed Hussein being taunted before he was hanged.

``I thought it was discouraging,'' said Bush, who saw only part of it on the Internet because he didn't want to watch Hussein drop through the trap door, CBS reported. ``It's important that that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. They could have handled it a lot better.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Vincent Del Giudice at [e-mail]

Last Updated: January 13, 2007 15:04 EST


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTIalIeIBZ.M&refer=home