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Rumsfeld: Administrator's request for more troops was rejected

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that the nation's top military leaders gave serious consideration to a request for more troops in Iraq, but rejected it as unnecessary.

Former U.S. administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, was behind the request and publicized it in "My Year in Iraq," a 417-page tome published this month by Simon & Schuster.

Rumsfeld, who said he had not read the book, recalled receiving the request for more troops a few weeks before Bremer's departure from Iraq in July 2004.

"...I took that and sat down with General (Richard) Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and said, 'This is a reasonable proposal from a reasonable person. Let's look at it.'"

Rumsfeld said he also showed the request to President Bush and had sent Bremer a note that the request was being passed on to the top military leaders, who went on to spend "several weeks" evaluating it.

Bremer's request for two more divisions was given a "very thorough analysis," said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But, "all the chiefs agreed with all the commanders in the field that the numbers of troops in the field then, as now, was appropriate," he added.

By then, Rumsfeld said, Bremer had left his job, "so he may not have seen General Myers' response to me. ... By the time he left, he was no longer in a position where it would be appropriate to have given him the outcome. And he never asked, that I recall."

Rumsfeld said Bush told him "he preferred to go with the judgments of the military commanders on the ground."

The failure to beef up U.S. troop presence in Iraq has been blamed for the administration's inability to gain control of the insurgency.

By contrast, the 1991 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq followed the doctrine of overwhelming force -- nearly 700,000 troops -- favored by then-Gen. Colin Powell.

About 180,000 U.S. and coalition troops are in Iraq, which has a population of about 26 million.

Other developments

Insurgent attacks will increase as "political progress" in Iraq proceeds, warned Brig. Gen. Donald Alston on Thursday. Final results from the December 15 parliamentary election are expected in the coming weeks.

Alston Thursday characterized the raid of an Iraqi journalist's house last weekend as "appropriate," when important intelligence to defeat the insurgency presents itself. Ali Fadhil works for Britain's Guardian news and Channel 4. According to the Guardian, Fadhil was working with Guardian Films "on an investigation into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated." Troops confiscated tapes and have not returned them, Fadhil said.

A U.S. official in Baghdad downplayed reports that former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is near death, saying his health has seen no significant change or immediate risk. An attorney for Aziz described visiting him in prison Tuesday and said his health has deteriorated and that he would not survive another month there.

A 14-page article by a British officer critical of U.S. officers in Iraq is drawing a heated response by U.S. military officials. The Washington Post quoted U.S. Col. Kevin Benson, the director of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as calling Brig. Nigel Aylwin-Foster "an insufferable British snob." (Full story)

A German court convicted and sentenced an Iraqi national Thursday to seven years in prison for helping an al Qaeda-linked group in his home country. (Full story)

CNN's Terence Burke contributed to this report

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