Washington ? The White House staunchly defended its Iraq policy Tuesday as new questions emerged about President Bush’s prewar decisions and postwar planning. An impending weapons report undercut the administration’s main rationale for the war, and the former head of the American occupation said the United States had too few troops in Iraq after the invasion.

Four weeks before Election Day, Democrat John Kerry pounced on the acknowledgment by former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer Monday that the United States had “paid a big price” for insufficient troop levels.

Bremer, who shot into the national headlines with his remarks, softened his comments during a speech Tuesday in Michigan.

“We certainly had enough (troops) going into Iraq, because we won the war in a very short three weeks,” he told an audience of more than 400 people at Michigan State University.

“The point that I have been making, and that has gotten a little bit distorted in the press recently, is that, as I look back now, I believe it would have been better to stop the looting that was found right after the war.

“One way to have stopped the looting would have been to have more troops on the ground. That’s a retrospective wisdom of mine, looking backwards,” he added. “I think there are enough troops there now for the job we are doing.”

Kerry said there was a “long list of mistakes” that the Bush administration had made in Iraq.

“I’m glad that Paul Bremer has finally admitted at least two of them,” Kerry said, referring to postwar troop levels and a failure to contain chaos.

Weapons report due

A 1,000-page report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duefler, concludes that Saddam had less capacity to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in 2003, when the invasion occurred, than it did in 1998, when U.N. weapons inspectors left, The Washington Post reported on its Web site Tuesday night.

But the report, which is being released today, also includes comments Saddam made to debriefers after his capture supporting administration’s assertions, the Post said, quoting an unidentified senior U.S. official. It cited claim by Saddam that his past possession of weapons of mass destruction “was one of the reasons he had survived so long.”

A U.S. official said he could not confirm the report Tuesday night.

At a campaign stop in Tipton, Iowa, Kerry said the question for voters was whether Bush was “constitutionally incapable of acknowledging the truth” or was “just so stubborn.”

Bush to answer charges

In a rare day spent in Washington, Bush remained out of sight and silent, letting his surrogates answer Kerry’s charges. Bush’s speechwriters polished an address that administration aides said would be a sweeping indictment of Kerry’s policies on Iraq, the war on terrorism and the economy.

“It’s a comprehensive look at two very different records, one of accomplishment, and one of being on the wrong side of history over and over again,” Bush campaign communications director Nicolle Devenish said of the speech.

“The president will talk about the choice we face in this election between his commitment to success in the war on terror and John Kerry’s record of voting against measures to keep us safe, and attacking policies he once supported.”

The address in the swing state of Pennsylvania was originally to focus on health care, but the White House reversed course and made it about Iraq, seeking to blunt a new report on the absence of weapons of mass destruction there before the war.

Bremer, in a speech last month at DePauw University in Indiana, said he had raised within the Bush administration the issue of too few troops and “should have been even more insistent” when his advice was rejected.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to say if Bremer had pleaded with Bush for more troops, saying, “We never get into reading out all the conversations they had.”

Bush consulted military commanders — not his hand-picked Iraq administrator — for guidance on troop levels, McClellan said, adding, “The lessons from the past, including Vietnam, are that we shouldn’t try to micromanage military decisions from Washington.”

Listening to the brass

In an unusual public acknowledgment of internal dissent, Bush campaign spokesman Brian Jones said Bremer and the military brass had clashed on troop levels.

“Ambassador Bremer differed with the commanders in the field,” Jones said. “That is his right, but the president has always said that he will listen to his commanders on the ground and give them the support they need for victory.”

Military commanders believed the force level was adequate, said Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita.

“Before, during and subsequent to Mr. Bremer’s tenure, the military commanders and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the level of U.S. forces in Iraq was the appropriate level, and that was their recommendation to the secretary of defense.”

Kerry said he would listen to military and civilian leaders if elected.

“Commander in chief means you have to make judgments that protect the troops and accomplish the mission,” Kerry told reporters in Iowa. “I would listen to all of my advisers and make the best decision possible.”

Saddam’s intent

The White House, meanwhile, sought to put the brightest face possible on the report by Duelfer. In earlier drafts, Duelfer found that Saddam had left signs he had idle weapons programs he someday hoped to revive but that Saddam did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

Even before Duelfer’s final report was issued, McClellan said it bolstered the White House’s assertions on Iraq.

The report will conclude “that Saddam Hussein had the intent and the capability, that he was pursuing an aggressive strategy to bring down the sanctions, the international sanctions, imposed by the United Nations through illegal financing procurement schemes,” McClellan said. “The report will continue to show that he was a gathering threat that needed to be taken seriously, that it was a matter of time before he was going to begin pursuing those weapons of mass destruction,” he said.