WASHINGTON -- January 14 -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on remarks by President Bush in an interview with regional newspapers yesterday in which he said he regretted saying "bring 'em on" in reference to insurgents in Iraq who wanted to attack our troops:

"The President has finally acknowledged that his taunting the Iraqi insurgents by saying 'bring 'em on' has had unintended consequences, likely increasing the dangers faced by our troops in Iraq. Although unintended, the consequences of such remarks were all too predictable.

"It was also predictable that creating a chaotic security situation in Iraq would make the country what it was not before the war -- a 'magnet for terrorists,' a result recently confirmed by the National Intelligence Council.

"More than two years ago, senior military experts such as General Eric Shinseki warned against sending too small a force to Iraq, in part because they knew that any security vacuum created by the fall of Saddam Hussein would be filled by elements united only by the desire to kill Americans. One of the many mistakes of the Iraq war is that the President did not have a plan for preventing Iraq from becoming a hotbed for terrorists. We will be paying the price of that mistake for years to come.

"Having admitted the error of his words, the President must admit the error of his ways."

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