Tue Nov 4, 3:48 PM ET
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Iowa Republican Rep. Jim Leach, once an aide to now-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said on Tuesday White House policy-makers had made one of the most misguided assumptions ever in U.S. strategy by not planning for a decisive withdrawal from Iraq (news - web sites).
"The current (administration) thinking is that we'll be there six or seven years, people will realize that we're saviors and they'll want us to have many (military) bases and that this will be a bulwark in the Middle East for an American presence," said Leach, a 13-term House of Representatives veteran.
"I think that is one of the most misguided assumptions in the history of United States' strategic thinking," he added.
In a conference call with Iowa reporters, Leach said his views on Iraq were not the "majority sentiment" inside the White House. He said the administration of President Bush (news - web sites) was on a "slow slog" in Iraq, instead of announcing a "decisive" withdrawal of U.S. military forces by the end of next year.
"If we stay longer, we are going to have more, not fewer, problems in Iraq, and ... consequently more problems around the world and potentially in the United States as well," Leach said.
Faced with a mounting military and civilian death toll and stiffening guerrilla resistance, Bush vowed on Monday the United States would not run from its "vital" mission in Iraq.
Leach worked for Rumsfeld, then an Illinois Republican representative in 1965 and 1966, and as a special assistant to Rumsfeld when Rumsfeld was director of the Nixon administration's Office of Economic Opportunity a few years later.
During his stint on the White House staff, Leach shared an office with Dick Cheney (news - web sites), now vice president.
Leach, a member of the House International Relations Committee, said positive things were happening in the north and south of Iraq, but in Baghdad and areas in which the Sunni Muslims dominate, "it clearly isn't working" and "with each passing moment, it appears we're causing ... more problems than we're solving."
Leach said very few citizens of Iraq or the Muslim world wanted to see a permanent American presence in Iraq and that having American soldiers in Iraq inflamed insurgents.
"The longer we are there, the more we are going to be targets for their actions and we're setting ourselves up for a rationalization for anarchy and for terrorism against American interests around the world," he added.
