May 29, 2004

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  U.S. war policy ‘grave error’
  Ex-Rumsfeld aide admits occupation of Iraq a failure
  

  
  

  SANDRO CONTENTA
  EUROPEAN BUREAU
  
  LONDON, England— Richard Perle, until recently a powerful adviser to U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, described U.S. policy in post-war Iraq as a failure.

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  AP PHOTO/JOHN MOORE U.S. Marines begin withdrawing from their forward base in Falluja, April 29, 2004.

  
  

  
  

  “I would be the first to acknowledge we allowed the liberation (of Iraq) to subside into an occupation. And I think that was a grave error, and in some ways a continuing error,” said Perle, former chair of the influential Defence Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon.
  

  
  

  With violent resistance to the U.S.-led occupation showing no signs of ending, Perle said the biggest mistake in post-war policy “was the failure to turn Iraq back to the Iraqis more or less immediately.

  
  

  
  

  “We didn’t have to find ourselves in the role of occupier. We could have made the transition that is going to be made at the end of June more or less immediately.”

  
  

   

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