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WASHINGTON,
D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued today’s “Bush Administration’s
Misstatement of the Day” on the Administration’s miscalculation on the
size of the U.S. military force in Iraq.
Earlier
this year, then Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, said that the
occupation would require several hundred thousand soldiers. According
to USA Today (6/2/03):
“[Defense
Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
criticized the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki
told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred
thousand troops." Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate "wildly off the
mark.”
The
Washington Post reported today (Defense Official Moves to Ease Strained
Relations With Army, 10/9/03):
“…he
[Wolfowitz] lauded Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, with whom he clashed publicly
last spring about the likely size of the U.S. occupation force that would
be needed in postwar Iraq. When Shinseki left office as Army chief of staff
in June, neither Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz attended
his retirement ceremony, a breach of protocol that raised eyebrows across
the service.”
Schakowsky
said, “General Shinseki was right, but those in the Bush Administration
who never served in the military refuse to admit their mistakes.
Secretary Rumsfeld and his Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, are responsible for
the failed policies in Iraq and President Bush must demonstrate real leadership
and relieve them of their duties. They were wrong about the size
of the force and they were wrong about the war in Iraq.” |
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