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Rice: 'Clear and Hold' Best Strategy in Iraq
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday staunchly defended going to war in Iraq, but acknowledged the Bush administration likely erred by failing initially to send enough troops to quell the civil strife that followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Four years later and after more than 3,200 deaths of U.S. servicemen and women, Rice said patience still is required and asserted anew that the Iraqis are making headway in completing the transition toward democracy.
Rice appeared on a host of network morning news shows amid fresh White House warnings against plans by congressional Democrats to pass legislation effectively forcing the withdrawal of troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008. That means a standoff over war funding is looming, just as the battle to secure Baghdad intensifies and the war enters its fifth year.
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Asked on CBS's "The Early Show" to say what the administration could have done better, Rice replied, "I don't know. When we look back over time we will know the answer to that question." But she did say the United States, early on, "might have looked to a more localized, more decentralized approach to reconstruction.
"... And I do believe that the kind of counterinsurgency strategy in which Gen. (David) Petraeus is now pursuing, in which we have enough forces to clear an area and hold it, so that building and governance can emerge, is the best strategy. And that probably was not pursued in the very beginning."
© 2007 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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