- WASHINGTON -- President George
Bush offered an unprecedented admission that he might have "miscalculated"
events in post-war Iraq. Mr Bush insisted that his decision invade in March
2003 had been correct.
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- The subsequent problems had stemmed from the very speed
of the initial military victory, which had allowed Iraqi soldiers to vanish,
and mount the current insurgency. The President acknowledged he had made
"a miscalculation of what the conditions would be".
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- In the interview with the New York Times - Mr Bush's
first in three and a half years in office with the country's most influential
newspaper - he refused any further speculation on what had gone wrong with
the occupation - in which more than 800 US troops have died since Mr Bush's
now infamous "Mission Accomplished" appearance on an aircraft
carrier on 1 May 2003.
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- The President also yesterday ordered a major shake-up
of the US intelligence community, giving expanded powers to the director
of the CIA and setting up a National Counterterrorism Centre to co-ordinate
the efforts of the country's sometimes feuding intelligence agencies. The
President's moves, aimed at burnishing his credentials on the national
security issues which may be decisive in the election campaign this autumn,
came on the eve of his party's nominating convention, which opens in New
York on Monday.
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- The most important decision, issued as an executive order
with immediate effect, would place the CIA director squarely at the top
of the intelligence pyramid. He would enjoy overall control of the annual
$40bn US intelligence budget, 85 per cent of which is currently run by
the Pentagon.
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- The moves are the first to implement the recommendations
of the bipartisan 9/11 commission, which last month delivered a withering
criticism of the intelligence community's shortcomings before the terrorist
attacks of September 2001.
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- How quickly the reforms will occur in practice however
is unclear. Porter Goss, Mr Bush's nominee to replace George Tenet as CIA
director has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. At the Pentagon, the Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is expected to resist any loss of authority
to a genuine national intelligence 'czar.'
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- The President enters the Republican Convention in upbeat
mood. Despite growing evidence the economy has lost steam, two new polls
yesterday showed Mr Bush slightly ahead of his Democratic challenger John
Kerry - a reversal of the positions of only a fortnight ago.
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- A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll gave the Bush/Cheney ticket
a 47 per cent to 45 per cent lead, while CNN/Gallup has the President in
the lead by 48/46. Both fall within the statistical margin for error, but
are in line with a Los Angeles Times survey earlier in the week.
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- The virtual unanimity of the polls suggest that the controversial
TV ads by an independent veterans group accusing Mr Kerry of lying about
his war record have had an impact - putting the Democrat on the defensive
and eating into his credibility as a future commander- in-chief, capable
of defending the country from terrorists. In yesterday's interview, Mr
Bush told the New York Times he was sure that the Massachusetts senator
had told the truth about his time in Vietnam. But once again he refused
to explicitly condemn the ads, as even some Republicans have demanded.
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- Instead the President urged Mr Kerry to join him in seeking
a ban on all such advertising by the so-called '527' groups (named after
a clause in the tax code which permits their activities). Mr Bush claimed
he had been at least as much a victim of them as his opponent. In fact,
Democrat-aligned 527s have spent at least $63m on such ads savaging Mr
Bush, four times as much as Republican-supporting groups had spent attacking
Mr Kerry.
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- But barring an uncharacteristic show of urgency from
the FEC, the election regulatory body here, nothing is likely to be done
before the 2 November vote. Meanwhile, Unfit to Command, the book attacking
the Democratic candidate's war record published by the Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth, has turned into a bestseller - despite clear evidence the organisation
has close links to several Bush operatives, and several investigations
suggesting many of its allegations are simply false.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=555907
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