ATTACK ON KURDS SURPRISED U.S.(Main)

Byline: Los Angeles Times

In the Bush administration's first explicit acknowledgement that it may have misjudged the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, presidential national security adviser Brent Scowcroft said Sunday that Iraq's brutal attack against the Kurds took the White House by surprise.

"We did anticipate that there would be a lot of chaos and that the winning of the war would not solve the problems of that region by any stretch of the imagination," Scowcroft said on ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley."

But he added: "One of the things perhaps we did not anticipate was the severity of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein's attack against the …