Ain-Al-Yaqeen - January 13, 2006

		January 13, 2006

IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN MIDDLE EASTERN ISSUES.
THE PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS AWAIT THE ISRAELI DECISION ABOUT PALESTINIANS IN EAST JERUSALEM.
ANNAN OFFICIALLY APPOINTS THE BELGIAN JUDGE BRAMMERTZ AS CHAIR OF THE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE INTO THE MASSACRE OF AL-HARIRI.
THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR FILE ONLY STEPS AWAY FROM THE UNSC.
PRESIDENT BUSH PREDICTS MORE TOUGH FIGHTING AND MORE SACRIFICES AHEAD IN IRAQ IN 2006.

The United States of America has distanced itself from the crisis around the participation of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem in the legislative elections. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack briefed the press January 10, 05 and said the Secretary of State "is not trying to put her finger on the scale. This is a matter for the two sides to work out. We have been very clear that we think it is important for the January 25th elections to move forward. One of the stated concerns by the Palestinian side was the ability of the Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote. We came out from the very beginning, the first time we were asked about this, and said that this was an issue for both sides to work out. They have done so in the past and we encourage them to work it out, based on the fact that they had a history of being able to come to some mutually agreed solution on the issues. So, that has been our policy since this question first arose, I think, maybe three weeks ago or so when I was first asked about it. So this idea that somehow the Secretary's trying to -- or the U.S. is trying to put its finger on the scale in terms of a solution is just not accurate."..

"In terms of working out the East Jerusalem voting issue.. They've done it before. They've worked out the issues regarding voting in East Jerusalem before on two separate occasions. And so we encourage them to do so again."

"There are still some discussions ongoing within the Israeli cabinet and the Israeli Government. I'm going to let the Israeli Government speak to where they are in that process. I believe that any details regarding what they have in mind have not been completed yet. I know, one, Defense Minister Mofaz has spoken to this, but as for where they stand in their deliberations on the issue, I'm going to let the Israelis talk about that."

"We want the elections -- we believe the elections should move forward. I think President Abbas just talked about the fact that he thought elections would move forward on January 25th. We think it's important that the elections reflect the will of the Palestinian people, and the issue of voting in East Jerusalem is one that is a matter of ongoing discussion."

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel would make a final decision Sunday on whether to allow East Jerusalem residents to vote in the Jan. 25 Palestinian election. "The interim prime minister said (in a phone conversation with Rice) that he will put the question of the participation of East Jerusalem before the Cabinet on Sunday," said a statement from the prime minister's office.

Israel had initially said it would ban Palestinians from voting in East Jerusalem because of the participation of Islamist movement Hamas, but has since softened its stance. Olmert told Rice that "it is clear that the representatives of the terror organizations cannot participate in the elections in East Jerusalem" in reference to Hamas.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said on Monday that Israel had already agreed "in principle" to allow voting to take place in east Jerusalem which it occupied and then annexed in 1967. His comments provoked a furious reaction from the extreme right-wing Likud party, which has four ministers sitting in the Cabinet, with a spokesman calling the prospect of elections in East Jerusalem "miserable."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he had received assurances from the United States that East Jerusalem would be able to take part in the vote and rescinded a threat to cancel the whole election. However the Palestinians, who have received clearance to campaign in East Jerusalem, say that they have yet to be notified by Israel about its position. In an address carried live on Palestine TV, Abbas said he spoke to several U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who gave him assurances that Israel would allow voting in Jerusalem. Abbas said he also received a message from President Bush. "The elections will proceed and God willing take place on time," Abbas said.

Olmert told Rice that Israel was worried about the growing strength of Hamas, responsible for a majority of the anti-Israeli attacks of the past five years, and "the incapacity of Abu Mazen (Abbas) and the Palestinian Authority to deal with the situation."

"Israel will not give the Palestinians any opportunity to postpone the election and to evade its commitments to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure," he added. Mofaz said East Jerusalem Arabs would be permitted to cast ballots there, appearing to back away from Israel's threat to block the voting because it objected to participation by candidates from the militant group Hamas.

An official in Mofaz's office later said the defense minister was expressing his personal opinion rather than official government policy. Other officials also said no decision had been made despite US pressure for a deal.

Voting in East Jerusalem is contentious because Israel has annexed it to its capital in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want the city's eastern sector as the capital of a future state. As outlined by Mofaz, Palestinians would be able to cast votes at five post offices in East Jerusalem, as in their last parliamentary election in 1996. A Defense Ministry official said the proposal would bar Hamas voting slips in the booths.

"These elections will take place in the format used in 1996 and the same applies for East Jerusalem," Mofaz told reporters.

On the other hand former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not a man of peace although his decision to withdraw troops from the Gaza Strip will have a lasting impact on the region.

Fischer, who was a trusted and active mediator in the Middle East before leaving office in November, wrote in the German weekly Die Zeit that he had always had an ambivalent take on the Israeli leader.

"He was not a man of peace, neither as a politician nor as a soldier," Fischer said of Sharon, whose political future has been thrown into doubt since he suffered a major stroke.

Fischer noted that Sharon was "the political foster father of Israeli territorial expansion and with it the settlement movement" and was deeply skeptical about the Palestinians' will for peace.

"He never seriously believed in the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, and certainly never with Yasser Arafat," he said, referring to the late Palestinian leader. "He did not see a partner in Arafat or the Palestinian leadership and he did not want to negotiate.

"We often talked about that point and the prime minister always expressed his conviction that first of all, the Arab side would never truly accept Israel in the foreseeable future and secondly, the ideas about a final status were too far apart on the two sides and thus could not be bridged in negotiations."

Fischer added that Sharon "was and is totally inflexible" on the status of Jerusalem.

But he said Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip in September had been a monumental step that would secure Sharon's place in history.

"That was an unprecedented, nearly revolutionary event," he wrote. "That remains Ariel Sharon's lasting achievement."

In Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's centrist Kadima party would easily win a March 28 general election even without the incapacitated leader at its helm, two newspaper polls published showed.

The polls were the first to test the political waters for Sharon's newly formed Kadima party since the prime minister suffered a severe cerebral haemorrhage on Wednesday night and was said by doctors to be unlikely to return to public life.

A poll published in the Haaretz daily found that Kadima led by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would win 40 seats in the 120-member parliament, well ahead of the right-wing Likud party and the centre-left Labour Party.

Labour and Likud would win 18 and 13 seats respectively, the survey said. It noted that respondents' support for Kadima might have been influenced by a sympathy vote over Sharon's illness.

The Yedioth Ahronoth daily published similar results in its poll. It found that Kadima under Olmert would win 39 seats, but would win 42 if led by veteran Israeli statesman Shimon Peres who recently left Labour for Kadima.

Kadima had been seen as a vehicle for Sharon who left Likud in November to form the centrist party, saying he no longer wanted to have his hands tied in pursuing his diplomatic strategy for ending conflict with the Palestinians.

But analysts argue that it is way too early to say Kadima will still lead the polls by March 28.

"At the end of the day, it will be a battle between Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Olmert," said Professor Galia Golan-Gild from the School of Government at the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya.

"While Olmert is even more liberal than Sharon is - and said to be the key person behind the disengagement from Gaza - he certainly doesn't have the stature or credibility of Sharon in the eyes of the Israeli public," she said.

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Prime Minister Shimon Perez joined together to discuss the future of the newly established Kadima Party of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is in the hospital after experiencing massive cerebral haemorrhaging.

Perez issuing a statement following the talks has said he is concerned about Sharon's health "I pray just like everyone else and I am very concerned."

He said they discussed war and peace efforts and stated he will support Olmert for the leadership of the Kadima Party, according to the news relayed in the Israeli press.

On the Lebanese arena a Belgian prosecutor with the International Criminal Court will be the new head of a U.N. investigation into the death of a former Lebanese prime minister, the United Nations announced last Wednesday.

Serge Brammertz, now the deputy prosecutor of the Hague-based court, would replace German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who intends to leave the inquiry into the assassination of Rafik Hariri shortly after his successor arrives.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a letter to the 15-nation Security Council, which authorized the investigation, telling them of his intention to appoint Brammertz.

No objections are expected as key members had been consulted in advance.

"He will proceed to Beirut to take up his assignment as soon as practicable," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

He intends to stay in Beirut for six months.

The appointment of Brammertz, a former federal prosecutor of Belgium, was to have been announced a month ago. But Annan delayed the appointment because Brammertz first needed to assure governments who support the International Criminal Court (ICC) that his departure would not delay investigations in Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Brammertz would take a leave of absence from the ICC, which was set up more than two years ago to prosecute individuals suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

He was appointed to his ICC position in November 2003 for a six-year term and has had experience in chasing down terrorists in Belgium.

Although the United States opposes the ICC, Washington supported the choice of Brammertz last month as did other key Security Council members.

Mehlis has made clear in his reports to the Security Council that senior Syrian intelligence officials and their Lebanese allies were probably behind the killing of Hariri and 22 others in Beirut last Feb. 14. Syrian officials have adamantly denied President Bashar al-Assad's government was involved in the assassination.

The U.N. team is seeking an interview with Assad as well as his brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, the chief of Syria's intelligence service.

Dujarric also said that the United Nations will send a mission to Lebanon to offer the government assistance following Beirut's request to try suspects in a tribunal "of an international character."

Meantime the United States has put Syria on notice, warning that further action would be taken by the U.N. Security Council if Damascus continued to obstruct the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

"The United States has grave and continuing concerns about Syria's destabilizing behavior and sponsorship of terrorism," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a written statement.

"Syria must cease obstructing the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri and instead cooperate fully and unconditionally, as required by U.N. Security Council resolutions."

In her statement, Rice said the United States would refer the matter back to the U.N. Security Council if Syrian "obstruction" with investigators continued.

She also warned Syria to stop its intimidation of, and violence against, members of the Lebanese opposition of Assad's regime.

"Continuing assassinations in Lebanon of opponents of Syrian domination, including most recently the murder of journalist and Member of Parliament Gebran Tueni on December 12, 2005, create an atmosphere of fear that Syria uses to intimidate Lebanon," she said.

"Syria must cease this intimidation and immediately come into compliance with all relevant Security Council resolutions."

Rice said the United States "stands firmly" with the people of Lebanon in "rejecting any deals or compromises that would undermine" the investigation.

She also called for "full implementation" of U.N. Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament and disbanding of Hezbollah and other militias.

"Syria must once and for all end its interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon," she said.

Meantime in his address to members of the diplomatic corps, President Jacques Chirac warned that foreign powers would no longer be allowed to meddle with impunity in Lebanon's affairs, a clear rebuke of Syria for its actions.

Chirac's warning was issued during the traditional ceremony of the New Year greetings at the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris.

"In Lebanon, those who instigate attacks and plot to destabilize the country must know that the time of interference and impunity is over," Chirac said in his New Year's address to the diplomatic corps.

"The United Nations' resolutions must be implemented and respected in full," he said.

Chirac repeated demands that Syria, suspected of involvement in the murder last February of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, cooperate fully with the United Nations' inquiry into the killing.

"We also expect from this country strict respect of Lebanese sovereignty. For it to be welcomed back within the community of nations, it will certainly need to change its behavior," he warned.

Chirac also reiterated that Lebanon could "count on France's full support in carrying out the difficult internal reforms needed in order to restore it as a sovereign, independent and democratic country."

The United States called Iran's renewed work on nuclear fuel a serious concern and said the international community would have no choice but to seek U.N. Security Council action if Tehran persisted.

"If the regime in Iran continues on the current course and fails to abide by its international obligations there is no other choice but to refer the matter to the Security Council," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The United States and the European Union's three biggest powers said Thursday that talks with Iran to curb its nuclear program were at an impasse and Tehran should be brought before the U.N. Security Council.

The council could impose international sanctions on the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter over suspicions it is trying to build a nuclear bomb, but the United States said there would be no immediate move for such punishment.

Iran, which says its nuclear programs are solely for the peaceful generation of electricity, declared itself unworried by the threat of a referral to the United Nations' top forum.

But the United States intensified the pressure by also leaving the door open for a military attack should diplomacy eventually fail.

Accusing the Islamic republic of defying the international community, the western powers said Iran had consistently breached its commitments and failed to show the world its nuclear activities were peaceful.

"Our talks with Iran have reached a dead end," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting his British and French counterparts and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Berlin.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined their call for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency to discuss what she called Iran's "dangerous defiance" in restarting uranium enrichment work.

"That meeting would be to report Iran's non-compliance with its safeguard obligations to the U.N. Security Council," Rice told a news conference in Washington.

"Nobody is saying that there have to be immediate sanctions in the Security Council. Everybody wants to give the Iranians a chance to show us -- to reconsider their position," she later told CBS News.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator reiterated his country's stance that its nuclear plans were for peaceful means. "We have already declared that our intention is to do nuclear research, it has nothing to do with enrichment," Ali Larijani told CNN.

Due to fears in Europe that Washington might be seeking to build a case for an attack against Iran the way it had for Iraq, Rice had for months avoided any hint the United States might resort to force.

But on Thursday, while she still stressed diplomacy, the top U.S. diplomat left open the possibility of an eventual military attack.

Asked if the United States ruled out using force to stop Iran acquiring the A-bomb, Rice told CBS Evening News, "The president of the United States never takes any of his options off the table ... We are on a diplomatic track and it's not on the agenda at this point to move from that diplomatic track."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Larijani told him in a telephone conversation that Iran was still interested in "serious and constructive negotiations" with the EU3 as long as they did not drag on like the current stalled talks.

The U.N. leader said he had been talking to all sides in the dispute and the issue should remain for now before the IAEA in Vienna and only once that process was exhausted could it go to the Council.

The EU3 and the United States will also have to fight hard to win the support of Russia and China, permanent council members with veto powers, both to send Iran to the Council and for tough action once the case is referred there.

The two have previously resisted referring Iran's case to the Council but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Iran, a big energy partner of Russia, could lose Moscow's support if it did not resume a moratorium on nuclear research.

"We will find it very difficult to continue our efforts," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy stressed the need for close consultation with Moscow and Beijing. "Only if we're together will there be sufficient strength for the Iranians to return to reason," he said.

Seeking an international consensus on sending Iran to the Security Council, Britain said it would host talks of senior foreign ministry officials from the United States, Russia, China and the EU3 next week. Diplomats said these were likely to be held next Monday.

The EU3 announcement signified the end of 2-1/2 years of attempts to convince Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, which they suspect it intends to use to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

Tehran raised the stakes on Tuesday when it began to remove IAEA seals on equipment used to enrich uranium. The process can produce fuel for power stations or, if the uranium is highly purified, for bombs.

The most influential politician in Iraq issued a veiled warning yesterday to Sunni Arabs that Shiites would not allow substantive amendments to the country's new constitution, including to the provision that keeps the central government weak in favor of strong provincial governments.

Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said in an address on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha that provincial governments would remain strong in the constitution, which can be amended after the next government is installed.

"The first principle is not to change the essence of the constitution. This constitution was endorsed by the Iraqi people," he said.

Sunni Arabs place great stock in their ability to change the constitution, one of the reasons Sunni politician urged the minority to turn out in large numbers during the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.

They want a stronger central government because the constitution now bestows most power including control over oil profits to provincial governments. The Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north control most of Iraq's oil. There are few oil reserves in central Iraq, where Sunnis live.

To win their support for the new constitution, which was approved in an Oct. 15 vote, Sunni Arabs were promised they could propose amendments to it during the first four months of the new Parliament's tenure. The new Parliament is expected to be seated around the end of February. Amendments need two-thirds approval in Parliament and a majority in a national referendum.

Hakim said the country's most powerful Shiite alliance would name its candidate for prime minister within days and, having dominated last month's election, few expect its nomination to be blocked.

"We have a number of qualified candidates ready to take on the responsibility of this job," said the leader of SCIRI, one of the two main parties in the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).

"In the next few days we will decide who it will be," he said.

Under the Iraqi constitution, the biggest bloc in the assembly has the right to nominate the prime minister, although he or she must win parliamentary approval.

Preliminary election results suggest UIA will have nearly half the seats in the new Parliament. Sources in the Alliance said its two main candidates are Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Meantime Jalal Talabani, Iraq's Kurdish president, offered a timeframe on the formation of a government after meeting visiting British foreign secretary Jack Straw.

Talabani said Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political groups had agreed in principle on a national unity government that could be formed within a few weeks.

Western diplomats in Baghdad have speculated that a govt could be in place by the second half of Feb. "Everyone is expecting to have it as soon as possible, but you know the devil is in the details," Talabani said.

He said it should be easier to form a new government than it was after the January 30 elections last year. "We are expecting within weeks, God willing, we will be able to form the government."

Britain's visiting Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged Iraq to overcome sectarian differences and form a united government as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the cabinet could be unveiled within weeks.

Straw also said London hoped to start withdrawing some of its 8,000 troops from up to two provinces in the relatively calm south later this year.

Iraqis are still waiting to hear the results of landmark parliamentary elections that took place more than three weeks ago.

"It's of fundamental importance that they get the formation of this government right," Straw said.

"That not only means that they declare, as the leaders are now, that there has to be a government of national unity, but they get the details right," he said, following talks with Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.

Straw emphasized the need to create a broad consensus-based government.

"If all that happens is that the cabinet reflects the divisions that are there in the wider community, then it won't operate effectively," he told AFP.

Straw met members of the Sunni National Concensus Front, former prime minister Iyad Allawi and other politicians on his visit, which followed a tour of Basra in southern Iraq, where British troops are based.

Both Talabani, and Jaafari, made positive noises about the progress being made to agree on a new four-year administration.

The president said all sides agreed "to have a government of national unity," but acknowledged that "the devil is in the details."

At the same time, he expected the new cabinet to be formed in "some weeks."

Also keen to present a united front, Jaafari told reporters at a separate news conference the next government would be enlarged to include "all the major parties" in parliament.

Turning to the politically-charged issue of troop withdrawal, Straw said a pullout will start once the Iraqi military and police felt capable of taking control of security.

"In practice, what we hope to see is a gradual phased draw-down of British troops starting, not with Basra, but with one or two of the other provinces in our area," he said. "It's going to be a matter of months."

British forces control four of Iraq's southern provinces -- Basra, Nasiriyah, Samawah and Amara.

Meantime President George W. Bush denounced some Democratic critics of the Iraq war as irresponsible and he wanted an election-year debate that "brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries"

In a speech, Bush made clear he was girding for battle with Democrats in the run-up to the mid-term congressional election in November, when he will try to keep the U.S. Congress in the hands of his Republican Party amid American doubts about his Iraq policy.

"There is a difference between responsible and irresponsible debate and it's even more important to conduct this debate responsibly when American troops are risking their lives overseas," Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The president predicted more tough fighting and more sacrifice ahead in Iraq in 2006 but said he believed progress will be made against the insurgency and on the Iraqi political process and reconstruction.

He also urged all governments to follow through on promised aid to Iraq, saying $13 billion (7.4 billion pounds) had been pledged but not all of it delivered to date.

Bush, who has faced a barrage of criticism over his handling of Iraq, said Americans know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being handled "and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people."

He added, "So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

Bush did not mention names, but aides said he was referring to Democratic Party chief Howard Dean, along with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, among others.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was irresponsible for Democrats to claim, as Dean, Reid and others have done, that Bush has no strategy for Iraq.

On the other hand the Iraq war will likely cost the United States anywhere between one and two trillion dollars, despite earlier assurances by the White House that these expenses will be manageable, reveals a new study co-authored by a Nobel Prize winning economist.

The research made public by Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, a 2001 Nobel Prize laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank, and economy professor Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, argued current official assessments of the war cost fail to consider key expenses likely to dog the US budget for years to come.

They included rising medical expenses to treat more than 16 000 wounded soldiers, accelerated depreciation of military hardware on the battlefield and the ripple effect on higher oil prices on the US economy, which in part could be blamed on the military venture.

Stiglitz and Bilmes wrote: "Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how large they are. We can state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a trillion dollars."

Lawrence Lindsey, a former chief White House economist, suggested in the run-up to the war that its costs could probably reach $200bn.

However, other administration officials immediately dismissed the number as a gross overestimation.

Throughout the study, the authors provided "conservative" and "moderate" estimates of expenses incurred by American society since the start of the war in March 2003.

According to a "conservative" assessment, the war would cost Americans at least $1.026. Under a "moderate" assessment, the expenses would top $1.854.

According to congressional officials, the US had already spent $251bn in cash on combat operations in Iraq since the invasion was launched, and continued to fund operations there at about six billion dollars a month.

However, argue the economists, these figures failed to take into consideration disability payments to veterans over the course of their lifetime, the cost of replacing military equipment and munitions.

In addition, the cost of recruiting new soldiers had gone up dramatically, with the Pentagon paying recruitment bonuses of up to $40 000 for new enlistees and special bonuses and other benefits of up to $150 000 for current troops that re-enlist.

The authors pointed out: "Another cost to the government is the interest on the money that it has borrowed to finance the war."

They estimated that direct budgetary costs of the Iraq war to the US taxpayer would be in the range of $750bn to $1.1 trillion, assuming that the administration of President George W Bush would begin to withdraw troops in 2006 and maintained a diminishing presence in Iraq for the next five years.

The study warned that there were also economic costs likely to stretch out for years.

On the other hand Pentagon officials acknowledged that Paul Bremer, the senior U.S. official in Iraq during the first year of the war, told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in May 2004 that a far larger number of U.S. troops were needed to effectively fight the insurgency but his advice was rejected.

Larry Di Rita, a Rumsfeld spokesman, told reporters that Bremer made the recommendation in a memorandum and that it was the only time during his 13 months as head of the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Baghdad that he offered advice on troop levels.

"He on many (occasions) demurred when asked what the proper levels of forces were during the course of his tenure there," and that was appropriate because troop levels were not his direct responsibility, Di Rita said.

Di Rita said later that Bremer was never asked by Rumsfeld or other officials but was asked a number of times in news interviews. Bremer told ABC's "Good Morning America" in April 2004 for example, that he deferred on this matter to U.S. generals and that as far as he knew the generals believed they had enough troops.

In an interview with NBC News anchor Brian Williams on Sunday, Bremer said that his memo to Rumsfeld suggested 500,000 troops were needed more than three times the number there at the time. Bremer served as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority from May 2003, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, until June 2004, when Iraq's sovereignty was restored.