The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was attempting to defuse a spat with the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, on Friday over the number of mistakes made by the US so far in Iraq.
Rice said her relationship with Rumsfeld "couldn't be better," even after he had told a radio interviewer that he did not know what she was talking about when she told a UK think tank last week that the US had made thousands of "tactical errors" in Iraq.
The row has come at a time when public faith in the Republicans' ability to defend the country is at an all-time low. An AP/Ipsos poll published yesterday found that Americans no longer saw Republicans as any better than Democrats on defense, their flagship issue for decades. Bush also recorded his lowest rating in that poll since taking office, with only 36 percent of respondents saying he was doing a good job.
The White House was on the defensive once more yesterday over legal documents alleging that Bush had broken his ban on leaking classified information to bolster the case for war in 2003.
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said he could not talk about the documents as they were part of a court case involving a former vice-presidential aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But McClellan said the president sometimes found it necessary to "declassify information in the public interest."
Meanwhile Rice was under pressure to explain her "tactical errors" remark. Rumsfeld was withering in his response, suggesting she did not understand warfare.
"I don't know what she was talking about, to be perfectly honest," he told a radio station in Fargo, North Dakota, earlier this week. "The reality in war is this ... The enemy watches what you do and then adjusts to that, so you have to constantly adjust and change your tactics ... If someone says well, that's a tactical mistake, then I guess it's a lack of understanding ... of what warfare is about."
On Thursday, Rice said he had not seen what she had said.
"I guess I shouldn't use figures of speech," she added.
Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr on Tuesday hit out at China at an international forum after a memo asserting Beijing’s position over their longstanding maritime dispute was delivered to him while he was speaking on stage. The unusual incident was captured on video at the Seoul Defense Dialogue as the secretary was responding to a question about “gray zone” coercion in the South China Sea. The video shows what appears to be a conference staffer placing it on the table next to him while speaking. “I have a note here, I think this is from China,” he said, describing
Thai police yesterday said that they arrested a senior Buddhist monk on suspicion of embezzling US$2.8 million intended for his monastery, alongside a suspected female accomplice he was having sex with. The case is the latest scandal to hit the clergy in Buddhist-majority Thailand after a sex and extortion case involving senior monks last year prompted public outrage and calls for greater scrutiny of temple finances. Phra Wachirayan Wi, the 66-year-old abbot of the 14th-century Wat Phutthaisawan in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, was arrested on Thursday on charges including embezzlement and money laundering, lead police investigator Pattanasak Bupphasuwan said. A 47-year-old woman
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