By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Controversial Pentagon (news - web sites) adviser Richard Perle said on Sunday the Iraq (news - web sites) war could be shorter than the six-week Gulf War (news - web sites) in 1991, predicting again the conflict could be easier than it has so far turned out to be.
"The last Gulf War involved several weeks of bombing before the first ground forces touched Iraqi soil. I don't think it will be longer than that and maybe shorter," Perle said in an interview with CBC Television.
Perle, who resigned last week as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board over alleged conflicts of interest, is seen as a leading architect of the Bush administration's drive to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in the face of global opposition.
An influential neoconservative voice in Washington, Perle has been criticized for underestimating the difficulty of defeating the Iraqi president.
"Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder," Perle said last July.
President Bush (news - web sites) and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have warned since the conflict started that the war, now in its 11th day, could be long and difficult.
Rumsfeld, a friend of Perle's, has been criticized for committing too few troops to the battle that has resulted in overstretched supply lines and attacks in the rear of the advanced U.S.-British positions.
Perle said his earlier prediction that a major U.S. force in Iraq would not be necessary was made when he thought the war would be conducted on "an entirely different strategy."
But he insisted the war would still be short. "I think it will be a quick war, certainly by historical standards," he told CBC.
He also said he did not think the number of U.S. casualties would be high.
"It's not going to be tens of thousands and I hope it's not even thousands. I hope it's not in the high hundreds but I don't know, nobody knows."