Illustration by Bob Aul”The single most important change—the one thing that would have improved the situation—would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout. . . . Although I raised this issue a number of times with our government, I should have been even more insistent.”
—Former Iraq overseer L. Paul Bremer III, speaking to a group of Depauw University students on Sept. 17. The comments received publicity after Bremer told a group of insurance companies at an Oct. 4 West Virginia convention, “We never had enough troops on the ground.” White House spokesman Scott McClellan derided Bremer's comments by maintaining that Bremer “is not a military planner” and denied that Bremer ever complained to government officials about troop deployments to Iraq.
