World

Bremer: U.S. Lacked Troops

October 5, 2004 / 4:02 PM EDT / CBS/AP

The United States didn't have enough troops in Iraq immediately following the ouster of Saddam Hussein and "paid a big price" for it, the former head of the U.S. occupation there said Monday.

L. Paul Bremer said he arrived in Iraq on May 6, 2003 to find "horrid" looting and a very unstable situation.

"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Bremer said during an address Monday in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., to an insurance group, which reported his comments. "We never had enough troops on the ground."

But Bremer said he was "more convinced than ever that regime change was the right thing to do."

On the ground, U.S. warplanes pounded the vast Baghdad slum of Sadr City overnight after an American patrol came under gunfire, the military said Tuesday. In the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, a car bomb explosion was followed by clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents.

Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded as the Iraqi National Guard was conducting raids in Youssifiyah, a city south of Baghdad, killing at least one person and injuring 13, police said. Nine National Guard members were among the wounded, police said.

In the northern city of Mosul, a parked car loaded with explosives detonated as a U.S. convoy was driving by, police said. There was no immediate word on casualties from the blast.

In other developments:

Near Baghdad, one soldier from the U.S. Army's 13th Corps Support Command was killed and two were injured when their convoy hit a homemade bomb, the military said in a statement Tuesday. As of Monday, 1,055 members of the U.S. military had died in Iraq.

A hospital coroner says three decapitated bodies have been found in the northern city of Mosul.

The Army charged four soldiers with murder Monday, accusing them of suffocating an Iraqi general during an interrogation last fall.

A new CIA study further weakens the claim that Saddam Hussein had ties to terrorists, Knight Ridder reports. It says there's no solid evidence that Saddam gave sanctuary to al Qaeda-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday discounted any connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, saying: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong hard evidence that links the two," according to CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk. Rumsfeld also dismissed the possibility of civil war in Iraq.

A new report on Iraq's alleged weapons programs, due out Wednesday, is expected to say that there's no evidence of stockpiles or active production programs. But it will also point to efforts by Saddam to undermine U.N. sanctions, The New York Times reports.

The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Tuesday he is working to win the release of a British engineer being held hostage by insurgents in Iraq. Kenneth Bigley, 62, was kidnapped in Baghdad on Sept. 16 with two American co-workers for Gulf Services Co. of the United Arab Emirates. The Americans have been beheaded.

The European Union's incoming foreign affairs chief said Tuesday the EU must "learn the lessons" from trans-Atlantic divisions over the Iraq war and move on to repair Europe's relationship with the United States.

An influential Muslim Sunni cleric group said Tuesday that not holding elections in some areas of Iraq would be tantamount to fragmenting the country. Fears have been raised that January's elections may not be possible in rebel-held areas of the Sunni Triangle unless they are cleared of anti-government forces through force or diplomacy.

U.S. Marines have distributed $367,300 in condolence and damage repair payments in the holy city of Najaf since three weeks of fighting ended there in late August, the military said in a statement Tuesday.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have indicated that Ramadi, along with the nearby city of Fallujah, may have to be swept clear of rebels in order for January elections to take place everywhere in Iraq.

U.S. Marines, patrolling the city Monday, killed two insurgents and wounded a third while two civilians were also injured during the gun battle, a military spokesman said.

Police Capt. Nassir Hassan said Tuesday's explosion was a car bomb. U.S. soldiers and rebels exchanged gunfire following the blast. Dr. Dia'a al-Haity at the Ramadi General Hospital confirmed that two persons had died and four were injured in the fighting.

In Sadr City, hospital officials said at least one person was killed in skirmishes between U.S. troops and fighters loyal to renegade Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

U.S. soldiers were fired on late Monday during a routine patrol of the Shiite stronghold, which is home to more than 2 million people, said Capt. Brian O'Malley, spokesman for the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division. They returned fire as U.S. AC-130 planes targeted insurgent machine gun crews on the ground, he said.

One person was killed and two were injured when their car came under fire during the fighting, said Dr. Mohamed Aboud of Sadr hospital said.

Residents said they continued to hear loud explosions until dawn.

Despite the daily reports of violence, Bremer said he was "optimistic about the future in Iraq."

His comments raise eyebrows because they are similar in tone to criticism by Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry and others. But in a statement Monday night to The Washington Post, Bremer said he fully supported the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq.

"I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq," he said in the e-mailed statement, according to Tuesday's edition of the Post.

He also disputed criticism that the Bush administration had no plans for post-war Iraq.

"There was planning, but planning for a situation that didn't arise," he said, including a large-scale humanitarian or refugee crisis. "Could it have been done better? Frankly, I didn't spend a lot of time looking back."