US general faces up to critics

By DONALD MacINTYRE and RUPERT CORNWELL

Tommy Franks, the United States general commanding the invasion of Iraq, attempted yesterday to rebut widespread reports of a pause in the advance on Baghdad and of sharp divisions between himself and the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, over strategy for the war.

Rumsfeld yesterday dismissed what he called critics' hyperventilating and called reports that he vetoed plans by top officers for a larger invasion force fiction.

Franks appeared in public for the first time in six days to say that the operational war plan had been his and his alone.

Giving his most robust performance since the war began, Franks rejected criticism - some from former senior colleagues - that the war strategy was stalling.

"We are in fact on plan," he said. "Where we are is not only acceptable in my view - it's truly remarkable."

Without giving any hint of when a ground advance on Baghdad might begin after intensive bombardment of the Republic Guard divisions to the south of the capital, Franks insisted that it was "simply not the case" that there was an "operational pause".

He added: "There is a continuity of operations in this plan. That continuity has been seen. It will be seen in the days ahead and it will be manifested on the battlefield in Iraq at points and times of our choosing.

"What I mean by that is sometimes air, sometimes ground and sometimes special forces, sometimes combination of two of the above, sometimes all three. That's the way we're going to fight this."

His remarks appeared to be part of an effort co-ordinated by Washington to rebut reports about divisions between military and political establishments over the course of the war.

Administration officials said President George W. Bush had convened a weekend teleconference at Camp David with his War Council at which he backed plans which Administration officials insisted were endorsed by Rumsfeld and the top commanders. Franks echoed the weekend chorus of assertions that the invasion was "on plan".

Field commanders have talked of a pause in the campaign to rest, regroup and reinforce, while securing supply lines by pacifying southern Iraq.

What was less clear was how far the strong rebuttals of these suggestions extended to a bankable denial that a ground advance towards Baghdad might have to await further bombardment of the Republican Guard's well dug-in positions, let alone reinforcements by further troops known to be on the way from the US.

Franks denied that he had wanted to delay the start of the war to wait for more ground troops after Turkey refused to provide bases for the 4th Infantry Division to enter Iraq, only to be overruled by Rumsfeld.

He said "very few people" knew the truth of how the plan was put together.

"No one has driven the timing of this operation except the operational commander. Those who seek to find a wedge between the various people among us, the various leaders party to this, will likely not be able to do so because this has been worked, studied and iterated over a long time. Its chief characteristic is flexibility and adaptability."

Instead, he suggested for the first time, the timing of the ground invasion had been dictated by Iraqi efforts to set fire to the Rumaila oil fields.

"We saw evidence that the regime was intending to destroy the southern oilfields," he said.

"It had not been able to fully set the conditions to do so and we had an opportunity to get those oilfields.

"Since we had a plan that enabled us to do either air operations first, or ground operations first or special operations first, we simply put the mosaic together in the way you have seen. That decision was made by me, not influenced by anybody else."

Asked if the war might stretch into the northern summer, Franks said: "We don't know. But what we do know is this coalition sees this regime gone at the end of that."

Rumsfeld denied that he had repeatedly overruled his top military advisers by ordering that the ground force they proposed be sharply reduced.

In the sharpest criticism yet of his handling of the war, the New Yorker magazine claims that Rumsfeld on at least six occasions in the run-up to the war insisted on a smaller troop strength than his commanders wanted.

The magazine also quotes high-level US officials as saying that despite advice from Franks, Rumsfeld refused to delay the start of the campaign until the 4th Infantry Division could be brought to the front by another route, after Turkey had refused to let it deploy on its territory.

Yesterday, Rumsfeld flatly rejected charges he had micro-managed the campaign and had denied requests by his commanders for more ground troops and tanks.



Little more than 100,000 frontline US and British troops are on the ground inside Iraq, compared with the 500,000-strong force amassed by the first President Bush to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.

Pentagon officials say operations are proceeding according to the "rolling start" strategy, which will ultimately see some 250,000 men in the field.

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Herald Feature: Iraq war