Rice Concedes Errors in Iraq, Elsewhere

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
1 hour, 49 minutes ago

BLACKBURN, England - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conceded Friday that the United States probably has made thousands of "tactical errors" in Iraq and elsewhere, but said it will be judged by its larger aims of peace and democracy in the Middle East.

The U.S. diplomat met loud anti-war protests in the streets and skeptical questions about U.S. involvement in Iraq at a foreign policy salon Friday, including one about whether Washington had learned from its "mistakes over the past three years."

Rice replied that leaders would be "brain-dead" if they did not absorb the lessons of their times.

"I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure," Rice told an audience gathered by the British foreign policy think tank Chatham House. "But when you look back in history, what will be judged will be, did you make the right strategic decisions."

She said she remains firmly convinced that it was the right strategic decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq three years ago, and that it required an invasion to do it.

Saddam "wasn't going anywhere without military intervention," she said.

Demonstrators organized marches to call America's top diplomat a war criminal and human rights abuser as she joined British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on a tour of his adopted northern England working-class home.

Rice said she was not surprised by the depth of opposition in Britain, President Bush's strongest ally in Iraq, to the war and other American policies.

"I've seen it in every city I've visited in the United States," Rice said earlier Friday. "People have strong views."

"People have the right to protest, that's what democracy is all about," Rice told reporters at a British aerospace plant. "I would say to those who wish to protest, by all means."

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