WaPo: Bush Takes Suggestions on Iraq >>>

Bush Takes Suggestions on Iraq

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2006; 12:57 PM

<snip>

Bush, seated at a long table between Rice and Vice President Cheney, took no questions from reporters. But a few of the former secretaries answered queries about the meeting outside the White House, saying the group emphasized a need for the president to clearly explain his policies to the public.

"It was a unique meeting," said Frank C. Carlucci, 75, who served as defense secretary under President Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s. "It was all very respectful, but I think people didn't hesitate to express candid views." Among those who made "very strong points," he said, were former defense secretary Melvin R. Laird, 83, who served under President Richard M. Nixon, and former secretaries of state George P. Shultz, 85, a Reagan appointee, and Madeleine K. Albright, 68, who served under President Bill Clinton.

Albright, who was the first woman secretary of state and now chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, has complained publicly that the war in Iraq has cost the United States credibility around the world after the rationale for the 2003 U.S. invasion -- a threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- turned out to be based on faulty intelligence. She has also opposed Bush's appointment of John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a post she formerly held under Clinton.

"I think we all agreed that we want the president to succeed in his policies," Carlucci said in an interview with CNN. "Whether people agreed with the decision to go in or not, nobody really feels that we ought to fail at this point. We need to keep pushing ahead. There was nobody in the meeting that urged us to engage in an immediate pullout."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010500254.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/iraq