Associated PressOn the eve of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman delivered a blistering critique of President Bush's handling of the war on terror and said an international administrator should take control of Iraq within 60 days.
"I didn't support the war so that the U.S. could control Iraq," the Connecticut senator said in speech prepared for delivery to the Council on Foreign Relations, just blocks from the World Trade Center site in Manhattan. "Iraqis must control Iraq."
Lieberman said it's past time for L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, to hand off control of the country's government to an international administrator. The new administrator should immediately announce a schedule for Iraq to adopt a constitution and hold free elections, he said.
Lieberman has been the most unwavering supporter of the U.S.- led war in Iraq among the nine Democrats pursuing the party's presidential nomination. But he has criticized Bush's handling of diplomacy and reconstruction, and continued his line despite a warning from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday that criticism of Bush's handling of the Iraq war could give encouragement to terrorists. ---
