Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized the Bush Administration for not following his advice to deploy enough troops to Iraq before the onset of the war.

In an interview on the UK's ITV on Sunday, Powell said "The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force was adequate, they may still feel that years later. Some of us don't, I don't."

"At the time the president was listening to those who were supposed to be providing him with military advice," he said. "They were anticipating a different kind of aftermath of the fall in Baghdad. It turned out to be not exactly as they had anticipated."

Powell's remarks comes at a sensitive time for U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has been put on the defensive for his leadership on the war, with a number of retired generals calling for his resignation.

They claimed that Rumsfeld arrogantly ignored the advice of senior military in planning for the Iraq invasion, including General Eric Shinseki, the former army chief of staff who in 2003 told U.S. Congress that several hundred thousand troops would be needed for the invasion and subsequent occupation.

But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when asked to address her predecessor's remarks, told CNN on Sunday that she did not remember Powell "specifically" voicing dissent on the issue of whether or not the invasion of Iraq was adequately resourced.

"I'm quite certain that there were lots of discussions about how best to fulfil the mission that we went into Iraq (to carry out)," she said. "I have no doubt that all of this was taken into consideration."

Source: Xinhua