By Andrew Gray WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - NATO's top general did not dispute on Wednesday a published account saying he described the Iraq war as a debacle and considered resigning over the conflict. A new book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward says U.S. Gen. James Jones called the war a debacle in a conversation with Gen. Peter Pace, now chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Woodward's book, "State of Denial," has fueled speculation that top U.S. military officers are unhappy with President George W. Bush's administration and believe Iraq's insurgency flourished because civilian officials ignored their advice. Talking to reporters after a speech on Wednesday, Jones declined to reveal his exact words to Pace in a conversation last year shortly before Pace became America's top military officer but said they were intended simply to impress upon him that Iraq was a major problem. Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander as well as head of U.S. European Command, also said he would not describe Iraq as a debacle now, adding he believed the United States had made progress there. "A year ago, if I used that word ... it has to do with intent here. And my intent was to help a friend understand some things that he already knew, that Iraq is a big problem," he said after speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. Asked whether he considered quitting his NATO post over Iraq, he said: "We all have bad days." "I remember my first thought of resignation was in Vietnam. I thought: Why am I doing this? You have bad days so you think about yourself every now and then, but now we have good days," he told reporters. BOOK PORTRAYS DIVISION The book by Woodward, famous for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal which brought down President Richard Nixon, portrays a divided Bush administration which did not plan sufficiently for the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The White House has denied several of the books's central assertions, including a claim that Bush has misled Americans about the gravity of the situation in Iraq. The book was published on Saturday, less than two months before mid-term elections in which Bush's Republican party is battling to retain control of both houses of Congress. Woodward writes that Jones was concerned his fellow Marine general Pace would even want to become chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and warned him: "You're going to face a debacle and be part of the debacle in Iraq." Jones, who counts Woodward as a good friend, said he had intended to be positive in his comments to Pace. "It was reported in the way it was reported. I don't challenge Bob's characterization of it except that, had I seen it, I probably would have suggested that the tone was a bit more critical than I intended it to be," he said. He said he did not associate himself with a group of retired generals who have publicly criticized the administration and called for the removal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "We're a team, we're together," he said of his relations with Pace and Rumsfeld. "We have occasional family disagreements, we use words (which have) unintended consequences but we are going to do the right thing in the world," he said. At least tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and more than 2,730 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. The U.S. military said on Wednesday that bomb attacks in Baghdad had hit an all-time high.
