White House backs Rumsfeld against Iraq charges

Washington, Oct 2: US President George W Bush has confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, despite accusations that he botched the Iraq war and earlier efforts by top Bush aides to replace him, the White House said yesterday.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett also said Condoleezza Rice, who served as Bush's national security adviser before becoming secretary of state, had proposed a complete change of Bush's national security team after his 2004 re-election.

This was in addition to efforts by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to replace Rumsfeld, as reported in a new book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward on Bush's handling of the war.

''The president has full confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld,'' Bartlett told ABC's ''This Week.'' Rumsfeld was doing an ''enormously difficult job,'' he added.

Bartlett also denied Bush was misleading the America public about violence against U.S. troops in Iraq, a central charge in a Woodward's book ''State of Denial.'' Rumsfeld, who critics say failed to adequately plan for the Iraq war or send enough troops, remains the right person to lead it, Bartlett said. ''We recognize that he has his critics, we recognize that he's made some very difficult decisions. Some people don't like his bedside manner,'' Bartlett said.

Bush wants Rumsfeld ''to bring him the type of information he needs to make the right decisions in this war,'' Bartlett said.

Rumsfeld today said he would not resign and that Bush had personally called to offer support. ''Oh my lord, yes,'' he said in response to a question on whether Bush affirmed his support.

Rumsfeld has offered his resignation twice but it was not accepted by the president.

Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters on a flight to Nicaragua, also dismissed suggestions that he and Rice had at one point not been speaking to one another.

SECRET ASSESSMENT

Disputing Woodward's assertion that Card tried to fire Rumsfeld with the support of First Lady Laura Bush, Bartlett said Card merely presented Cabinet options to Bush. Speaking on CNN's ''Late Edition,'' he also said Rice ''suggested to the president maybe he ought to bring in a whole new national-security team starting the second term.'' ''The president decided that's not the approach he wanted to take,'' Bartlett said.

Card acknowledged to MSNBC that he discussed replacing Rumsfeld with Bush on at least two occasions as part of other potential cabinet changes.

''There was never an orchestrated campaign to remove the secretary of defense that I was party to and I never had any indication that the first lady believed there should be a campaign to remove him,'' Card said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, considered a voice of caution on the war, was replaced by Bush for the second term.

Woodward also wrote that while Bush spoke publicly of progress in Iraq, a secret intelligence assessment in May 2006 showed the insurgency was growing.

Bartlett said Bush has been ''blunt'' with the American public about the violence and the difficulties the US faces in Iraq, and added that the book fails to note examples.

US Rep Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said Bush was not being open about the war.

''I think that there's an evidence-free zone in the White House and the top levels of the Pentagon. Regardless of what intelligence says, regardless of what some of their key inside advisers say, they say something different in public,'' Harman told ''Fox News Sunday.'' Bartlett said Bush declined to cooperate with Woodward, who helped to break open the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon. Administration officials spent hours with Woodward but believed ''their points weren't getting across,'' he said.

REUTERS