Text size:

Rep. Israel says 'false' pretenses led to war

BY J. JIONI PALMER | Newsday Washington Bureau

April 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - Three years after he voted for invading Iraq, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) says the case for war was based on a "false pretense" perpetuated by President George W. Bush.

"I never would have voted the way I did had I known what I know now," said Israel, who will travel this week to Iraq for the second time. "Either he [Bush] was misinformed or he misled. I'm not satisfied with either option."

Israel initially voted in favor of giving Bush the authority to use force to remove Saddam Hussein because, he says, Bush personally assured him that weapons of mass destruction would be found and that the fighting would be quick and relatively inexpensive.

When Israel returns to Iraq, he said, he expects to find conditions nothing like what Bush had promised and a far more precarious environment than last time.

"I don't want to say we're losing, but we're not winning," Israel said. "We're playing a game of 'whack-a-mole,' where you hit an insurgent in one place and another appears somewhere else."

During his first trip in January 2004, Israel said, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then commander of U.S. ground forces, told him there were no more than a "few thousand insurgents and 300 foreign terrorists" in Iraq.

"By some estimates there are now 20,000 insurgents and several thousand foreign terrorists," he said. "My guess is that his math at the time was right and U.S. military planning was wrong."

While in Iraq, Israel said, the four-member delegation will travel to Baghdad and Balad and is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and President Jalal Talabani. For security reasons, Israel said, military officials asked that the visit's schedule not be disclosed.