WASHINGTON — President Bush retains "full confidence" in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a top White House official said Sunday, responding to newly published allegations that Rumsfeld has mismanaged the Iraq war and alienated senior members of the Bush administration with his autocratic personal style.
"The president has full confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld," White House Counselor Dan Bartlett told ABC's "This Week" in one of three appearances he made on the Sunday talk shows.
Rumsfeld is "doing an enormously difficult job, fighting a war, trying to transform our military to meet the new threats of the 21st century," Bartlett said. "We recognize that he has his critics. We recognize that he's made some very difficult decisions. Some people don't like his bedside manner."
Rumsfeld, traveling Sunday to Nicaragua for a meeting with Latin American defense ministers, told the Associated Press that he was not considering resigning and that the president had "called me personally" to express his support.
The remarks came in response to "State of Denial," a new book by Bob Woodward that features many anecdotes casting the administration in an unfavorable light on issues of national security.
One theme of the book is that the president continually conveyed to the American public an unrealistically upbeat assessment of events in Iraq, even as the situation deteriorated. Another is that the administration was sharply divided over the handling of the war, though such divisions have largely been concealed from the public.
Since the first details of the book were publicized late last week, the administration has been struggling to rebut unfavorable accounts.
Bartlett sought Sunday to defuse the controversy by questioning Woodward's objectivity and conclusions.
"The claim that the president was in a 'state of denial,' that he was misleading the American people about what was happening in Iraq, quite frankly is not backed up" by the facts in the book, Bartlett contended on "This Week."
As Woodward prepared the book, Bartlett said, the journalist was resistant to "counter-evidence" provided to him by administration officials.
"As we worked with Bob on this project from the very outset, it was unfortunate that we felt he had already formulated some conclusions even before the interviewing began," Bartlett said.
