Ex-defence adviser attacks Bush
A key US proponent of the invasion of Iraq has now said that devastating dysfunction has turned US policy in the country into a "disaster".
Richard Perle, a former defence adviser to the Bush administration, told US magazine Vanity Fair the president was responsible for the failure.
Mr Perle's comments come just three days before the US mid-term elections.
The neo-conservative said in hindsight he probably would not have advocated the invasion of Iraq.
'Misinterpretation'
Mr Perle's criticisms are echoed in the magazine by another neo-conservative.
Kenneth Adelman once predicted that the war would be a cakewalk.
Now he says that President George W Bush and his national security team have turned out to be one of the most incompetent in half a century.
However, a third senior Republican, David Frum, who is quoted in the Vanity Fair article as criticising his former boss, has accused the publishers of serious misinterpretation.
He said: "The dishonesty inherent in the way this press release was presented by the editors and publicists at Vanity Fair was to transform an argument about how to win into a lot of hand-wringing about the past, that people supported the war now want to give up on it. That's not true."
In his weekly radio address, President Bush made no mention of the Iraq war, focusing on the economy instead.
But the pressure over Iraq continues to build.
The Military Times, read by many serving soldiers, is the latest to call on President Bush to fire Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
This swamplife along with all others who create a stench in Washington need a bullet in the head and be shot along with Saddam. Perhaps then, "the world will be a safer place".
PS Not "excusing" Bush - sure he is ultimately responsible and his judgement is a miserable failure on all levels, - but even crooks have some sense of honor when the ship is sinking - and Perle lacks even that.
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