WASHINGTON, May 19: US President George W. Bush has acknowledged that his administration did not move civilian workers into Iraq quickly enough to stabilise the country after the military invasion ousted Saddam Hussein.

“One of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that, while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of US government civilians,” Mr Bush said in a speech to the International Republican Institute.

Mr Bush, who met Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif at the White House on Wednesday, also called for election monitors in Egypt, where critics have questioned President Hosni Mubarak’s intentions to abide by his initial claims to back multi-candidate elections.

After Mr Bush’s meeting with Mr Nazif, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the two leaders spent a “great bit of time” discussing political reforms. In his speech at the IRI, Mr Bush said to remedy the mistakes made in Iraq he has proposed creating a corps of trained civilians who could be deployed on short notice to help in crises caused by war or revolution.