Schwarzkopf Apologizes to President for War Remark : Policy: Gulf commander denies disagreeing with Bush’s decision to end the ground assault after 100 hours.

Blaming his “poor choice of words,” Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf said Friday that he apologized to President Bush for suggesting that Bush halted the Persian Gulf War prematurely.

In his first public statement since a brouhaha erupted over his apparent disagreement with the timing of the war’s end, the commander of Operation Desert Storm sought to quickly put to rest any hint of discord with Bush.

Schwarzkopf said he agreed “100%” with the president’s decision to declare a cease-fire after 100 hours of ground combat, adding that “generals aren’t in the business of commenting on the correctness” of presidential orders. Those who do, he said, “ought to be fired on the spot.”

“I apologized to the President,” Schwarzkopf said in describing a telephone call he received from Bush on Thursday. “I said, ‘I am extremely sorry that a poor choice of words on my part in any way would result in dishonor cast upon you.’

“He’s my commander in chief, and he said, ‘I’m telling you, just forget it; it’s not important.’ And since he’s my boss, I’m going to forget it.”

Asked about Schwarzkopf’s apology, White House Deputy Press Secretary Roman Popadiuk refused to comment. “We really don’t have anything to add beyond what we’ve said on the record,” Popadiuk said. “I’ve seen Gen. Schwarzkopf’s comments of this morning, and I’ll just leave them where they are.” The general’s words to reporters in a hotel lobby in Riyadh followed a controversy over Schwarzkopf’s suggestion in a television interview that he had wanted to “continue the march” against the devastated Iraqi army instead of halting hostilities.

The statement, to television interviewer David Frost on PBS, fueled speculation over what appeared to be the first major split between the Washington leadership and its top general in the field.

It came at a time that some critics were suggesting that the quick end to the war allowed Saddam Hussein to salvage a portion of his war machine--troops and armor that he is now using to battle insurgents throughout his country.

But on Friday, Schwarzkopf echoed remarks out of Washington that he had concurred with the decision to end the war on Feb. 28.

” . . . Let me just make it clear for the record . . . that I was consulted on the decision,” the allied commander said. “I agreed 100% with the decision, and I think it was a correct decision. I thought it was a correct decision then, and I think it’s a correct decision now.”

Schwarzkopf, whose direction of the war has catapulted him into the role of super-hero in the United States, seemed to take umbrage at efforts to liken him to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Korean War commander who was sacked by President Harry S. Truman for disobeying an executive order.

He also seemed offended by a New York Times editorial’s suggestion that he had wanted to “continue the repugnant ‘turkey shoot’ a little longer.”

Alluding to the media, Schwarzkopf accused “mudslingers that come climbing out from under their rocks . . . after every war” of distorting his words in an effort to “somehow dishonor the great job that’s been done by everybody.”

“It happened in Vietnam,” the four-star general said. “It happened in Grenada. And here again, we have a case where someone took an inappropriate use of words on my part and tried to blow it into a major controversy.

“I felt terrible about that. I really felt terrible that my words were being used to somehow cast aspersion upon the decisions made by the President or, for that matter, the military.”

Schwarzkopf had told Frost, in an interview broadcast Wednesday, that his “recommendation” to Bush was to continue fighting. “We had them in a rout, and we could have continued to reap great destruction on them,” Schwarzkopf told Frost.

But on Friday, he said it was a mistake to use the word recommendation. What he meant to say, he said, was that it had been “initially planned” to press the offensive but that the plan changed.

“If I could do the whole thing all over again, I know I would change the word recommend to say, ‘We initially planned. . . . ‘

“We initially planned to do one thing,” Schwarzkopf said. “But at the time when Colin Powell (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and I were discussing this, we both agreed that we had accomplished the military objectives and that the appropriate time was coming in the very near future to stop the battle.”

He said he was notified of the decision to end the fight, his opinion was sought and he concurred that the time was right. Schwarzkopf said it was “baloney” to suggest that he had been overruled by Bush.

This version matches comments made Thursday in Washington by White House officials, who noted that both Bush and Powell spoke to Schwarzkopf on Feb. 27 and obtained his concurrence in declaring a tentative cease-fire.

After the transcript of Schwarzkopf’s remarks to Frost circulated in Washington, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, and then Bush himself, quickly contradicted the general. As controversy grew, Bush called Schwarzkopf on Thursday to reassure the general that the dispute was “much ado about nothing.”

Schwarzkopf, in making his comments Friday to a handful of reporters, was clearly interested in setting the record straight and repairing any political damage.

The meeting between Schwarzkopf and the reporters had the outward appearance of an impromptu news conference in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the general had paid a visit to the U.S. Central Command press office.

But, in fact, the chance encounter was carefully orchestrated by the general’s staff.

Military public affairs officers, who normally treat reporters a little like the enemy, took the unusual step of notifying the press when and where Schwarzkopf would be appearing. They also coached reporters on where to stand to have the best access to the general, suggested questions he would be likely to answer and lent an Army cameraman to a network producer who didn’t have time to call her crew.

After entertaining a single question on the flap with Bush, Schwarzkopf, whose nickname is “The Bear,” startled the reporters by suddenly talking about animals in the Kuwait city zoo who were abused by Iraqi soldiers. The bear, for example:

“There’s a bear up there that was shot in the rear end, and it is being most uncooperative at the present time, and further action will have to be taken,” Schwarzkopf said.

“So, I guess what I want to tell you is if you’re looking for a disgruntled bear, you won’t find him here. You’ll find him in Kuwait. So go up there and look for the disgruntled bear.”

Times staff writer David Lauter in Washington contributed to this article.