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| Official admits "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq | | By: Reuters | | Sun Oct 22, 2006 6:02 AM ET
(Pic)- U.S. soldiers secure the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad October 21, 2006. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen
LONDON (Reuters) - The Arabic news channel Al Jazeera quoted a senior U.S. official on Sunday as saying that the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq.
Asked about the report, a U.S. State Department spokesman said department official Alberto Fernandez had been misquoted.
"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," Al Jazeera quoted Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the State Department's bureau of Near Eastern affairs, as saying.
His comments were published on Al Jazeera's English-language Web site, which said he had made them in Arabic in an interview with the station aired late on Saturday.
Asked about the report, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "What he (Fernandez) says is that it is not an accurate quote." Asked whether he thought the United States would be judged as being arrogant, McCormack said "No".
Fernandez was also quoted as saying Washington was ready to talk to any Iraqi group except al Qaeda in Iraq to end violence.
Al Jazeera said a spokesman for ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party had earlier said the United States was seeking a face-saving exodus from Iraq and insurgents were ready to negotiate but would not lay down their arms.
The spokesman, Abu Mohammed, outlined a series of conditions he said would have to be met before talks with the Americans could begin, the Web site said.
The demands included the return to service of Saddam's armed forces, the scrapping of every law adopted since his removal from power, the recognition of insurgent groups as the sole representatives of the Iraqi people and a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
Al Jazeera said Fernandez had dismissed the Baath Party's conditions.
"There is an element of the farcical in that statement ... They are very removed from reality," it quoted him as saying.
President Bush, facing public discontent with the Iraq war ahead of November 7 midterm elections, acknowledged in his weekly radio address on Saturday that violence in Iraq had risen sharply.
He met top U.S. military commanders on Saturday to discuss the Iraq war and told them he would make "every necessary change" in tactics to try to reduce the bloodshed.
He insisted, however, he would not abandon his goal of building a self-sustaining democratic government in Iraq.
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