WASHINGTON — Utah's senators continue to support President Bush's plan to put more U.S. troops in Iraq, but Sen. Orrin Hatch said Wednesday that the main reason the country needs to send more troops is because the administration "failed" to prepare for the war correctly in the first place.

Hatch's statement comes as the Senate debates resolutions opposing the president's proposed 20,000 additional troops to Baghdad. The House is set to take up a similar resolution next week.

"I am supporting a strategy for success," Hatch, R-Utah, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. "So far, President Bush — who has a lot to answer for the mistakes that have been made — is offering the only way to try to leave Iraq in better shape than it is now."

Hatch said the administration failed "to anticipate many variables in the Iraqi theater, in the region and in Iraqi society.

"Those who prepared only for the military defeat of Saddam's forces committed such a profound error that it will be a lesson learned in the history books long after we are gone," Hatch said.

The speech marks Hatch's strongest criticism of the war, although he ended his remarks by saying he is "not conceding defeat, nor preparing for withdrawal" and urged his colleagues to support the president.

"While it is always good for the Senate to debate great matters of war and peace (and, indeed, there are no more important matters) the imbalance between partisan rhetoric and substantive direction on this question has been, to my mind, unsettling," Hatch said. "A perilous state of war in Iraq is not improved by the partisan level of debate here."

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, in remarks after the State of the Union address, said Bush acknowledged mistakes were made and put his detractors on the defensive.

A recent poll in The Politico, a new Washington-based newspaper covering Congress, indicated Bennett and Hatch said they did not regret their "yes" vote in 2002 to authorize the vote in Iraq, supported the surge and did not support withdrawal by a certain date.

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