Rumsfeld said the Overseas Basing Commission was "unhelpful" and said that a review of the report determined "that some of the information may have been classified."

"Some of the information, we already know, that was posted on their Web site, has given concern to some of the countries we've been negotiating with, because it revealed our negotiating position in a way that we hadn't previously discussed with the other countries, which is notably unhelpful," Rumsfeld said.

Pentagon officials who reviewed the report feel that "some of the conclusions in there, some of the factual information, is not completely correct," he said.

After the Pentagon complained, the commission removed the report from its website.

Rumsfeld made the comments in testimony to a separate nine member commission that is reviewing a list of base closures and reorganizations that the Pentagon is proposing in the United States.

The Overseas Bases Commission had urged the Pentagon to slow down its planned withdrawal of 70,000 troops from Germany and South Korea, warning it could handicap a force that is stretched already by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The commission questioned the wisdom of bringing troops home before budgets had been approved to accomodate them at US bases, and before acquiring ships and planes needed to move US-based to trouble spots around the world on short notice.

At Monday's hearing, Rumsfeld was asked whether he was putting "the cart before the horse."

"Oh no, indeed," Rumsfeld said. "This is something that a great deal of thought has been given to."

The secretary said the US forces would be shifted from overseas bases to the United States in a way that takes into account the impact on communities in allied countries while preserving the greatest flexibility for US forces.

"And the question as to when, the timing depends on the negotiations with those countries, the costs and how we phase it in," he said.

"But we are absolutely persuaded that the work that's been done on global posture has been well done and that we know how we're proceeding," he said.

The Washington Post, which first reported the dispute between the Pentagon and the Overseas Basing Commission, cited an official involved in the discussions as saying the Pentagon's main complaint apparently was that the report identified Bulgaria and Romania as countries US troops would rotate through for training.

It said Barry Pavel, the Defense Department's director of strategy on global posture, sent an email to commission president Al Cornella warning of a possible investigation into violation of security classification procedures.

In a May 6 email quoted by the Post, Pavel wrote: "Re: Report. I'll be frank, I found it professionally disappointing; riddled with errors of fact, misperceptions, and misunderstandings; and divulging classified information that will damage our foreign relations and national security."

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman said the commission had agreed to a requirement that it submit their report in advance for a security review.

"Their failure to do so appears to have resulted in unauthorized disclosure of classified information," he said.

"The department has initiated appropriate procedures of security breaches of this nature," he said, declining to specify the actions taken.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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