Rumsfeld led ‘very weak Bush’ into battle

A FORMER US diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war yesterday described US President George W Bush as a “very weak” man led by the hand into battle by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Brady Kiesling, who was political counsellor at the US embassy in Athens at the time of his resignation in February, said in an open letter published by Greek daily To Vima that Mr Rumsfeld exploited the war to increase his own power.

Mr Kiesling whose warning that US aims in Iraq were "incompatible with American values" struck a chord with the predominantly anti-war Greeks described Mr Bush as "a politician who badly wants to appear strong but in reality is very weak."

He said Mr Rumsfeld led Mr Bush by the hand into war, marginalised the secret services who had doubts about the war, and emerged as the top politician in Washington.

"Easy to convince, (Bush) blindly believed in Rumsfeld's assurances that the occupation of Iraq would pay for itself," Mr Kiesling said.

"The longer we remain in Iraq, the more the resistance to the American presence is going to be a source of legitimacy for the extremists," he said. He called for the United Nations and the European Union to be given an expanded role in the reconstruction of Iraq. Mr Kiesling said he regretted that US intelligence services had not spoken out about untruths concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which he added had humiliated the United States and damaged its closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.