Pelosi: I Showed 'Great Courage' Bashing Bush

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that it took "great courage" for her to bash President Bush two weeks ago as "an incompetent leader . . . who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon" - explaining that she leveled the incendiary criticism to help U.S. troops in Iraq.

"I made the statement that I did - and I think with great courage, if I might say about myself - because I am worried about the troops on the ground in Iraq," Pelosi told "Meet the Press."

"Believe me, I said this for the troops. I said this for the troops. [It was] a cry for help for the troops," she insisted.

Complaining that the Bush administration hadn't prepared the U.S. military for the insurgency in Iraq, the top House Democrat explained, "We're on a course of action that is dangerous to our troops. We did not equip them well. A Department of Defense report said that a quarter of the troops would not have lost their lives or been injured if they were better equipped."

"I have a responsibility to the troops," Pelosi claimed. "We owe them at least a fair fight when they go into battle for us."

She suggested that the best way to help the troops was to defeat President Bush in November, explaining, "There has to be some changes in the personnel in the administration. If the president doesn't want to make those changes, than we're just going to have to have a new president."

Editor's note: