So which statement do you think really came from his heart and was more accurate? The first comment that sparked a firestorm or his new one which we suspect came after getting a phone call from some superiors?
A senior U.S. diplomat who said the United States has shown “arrogance” and “stupidity” in Iraq said he “seriously misspoke” in an interview aired on Sunday after U.S. President George W. Bush said he was flexible on tactics, if not strategy.
In an attack that highlights the problems Washington faces in recruiting and training Iraqi security forces, 13 police recruits were killed and 25 wounded in an ambush on a convoy of buses near the town of Baquba on Sunday.
U.S. military deaths in Iraq in October have reached 83, making it the most deadly month for Americans this year and adding to pressure on Bush before Congressional elections next month in which Republicans could lose majorities in both houses.
“We tried to do our best (in Iraq) but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,” U.S. State Department official Alberto Fernandez told Al Jazeera television, according to a Reuters reporter who heard the interview, which was in Arabic.
Fernandez, the State Department’s director of public diplomacy in the bureau of Near Eastern affairs, said that he had misspoken during the interview.
“Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase ‘there has been arrogance and stupidity’ by the U.S. in Iraq. This represents neither my views nor those of the State Department. I apologize,” Fernandez said in a statement.
The State Department had said that the English translation of the comments posted on Al Jazeera’s English-language Web site had misquoted Fernandez.
So do you believe this — on a day when President George Bush said his administration has never had a policy of “stay the course”?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.