WASHINGTON -- The United States was right to invade Iraq, but choices made after the initial invasion have eroded security in the country, President Bush said in a television interview to be broadcast today.
"I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better," Bush said in the interview, which will air on "60 Minutes," the CBS program.
Questioned about the instability in Iraq, Bush said: "Well, no question decisions have made things unstable."
But he maintained that invading Iraq in 2003 was the right thing to do.
"My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision, in my judgment," he said. "We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find, or the weapons everybody thought he had. But he was a significant source of instability."
The " Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude," he said.
Bush's comments come as his new plan to send 21,500 additional US troops to secure in Iraq's capital and shore up forces fighting the insurgency in Anbar Province is attracting sharp criticism from members of Congress.
In his radio address yesterday, Bush also said his new plan could succeed, because, "American forces will have a green light to enter neighborhoods that are home to those fueling sectarian violence."
Until now, US forces have been restricted by the Iraqi prime minister from operating freely in the Sadr City area that is home to a powerful Shi'ite militia.
But Bush said those restrictions had been lifted and that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has promised that he would not tolerate interference with security operations.
Bush also challenged members of Congress who have criticized the plan to come up with their own proposals.
"To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," he said.
"We have a new strategy with a new mission: helping secure the population, especially in Baghdad. Our plan puts Iraqis in the lead."
But Representative Tim Walz, a newly elected Democrat from Minnesota who served in the war in Afghanistan, called Bush's plan "a step in the wrong direction -- more of the same at the very time we need a new direction in Iraq."
"We need diplomatic and political solutions in Iraq, not more American troops," he said yesterday in the Democrats' weekly radio address.
Many Iraqi leaders also have attacked the plan.
Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shi'ite cleric who leads the powerful Mahdi Army militia, has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the continued American presence in Iraq.
In a news conference in Najaf yesterday, Sadr's representative, Sheik Abdul Razzaq Nadawi, warned Bush "not to commit foolishness" and attack Sadr's followers.
"Anyone who is attacked must respond," Nadawi said. "In Islam we must respond."
Police patrols in Baghdad discovered 37 bodies, all of them middle-age men killed by gunfire. Some of the bodies showed signs of torture. In southeast Baghdad, a mortar round killed a woman.
In a visit to the capital, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed doubt that Iraq's government would follow through with its promises to secure Baghdad as she met with top Iraqi officials and American commanders.
It was the third trip to Iraq for Clinton, a New York Democrat who is considering running for president, and comes amid opposition from the Democrat-controlled Congress to President Bush's plans to send more troops to stop the rampant violence.
"I don't know that the American people or the Congress at this point believe this mission can work," she told ABC News in Baghdad. "And in the absence of a commitment that is backed up by actions from the Iraqi government, why should we believe it?"
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.