The chief campaign strategist for President Bush’s re-election has broken with the president on a series of issues including the war in Iraq. In an interview with The New York Times, Matthew Dowd called for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Dowd said: “If the American public says they’re done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want. They’re saying, 'Get out of Iraq.'” Dowd said he began having doubts on Iraq even as he was orchestrating the president’s election race against former Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry. Dowd said he later wrote but never submitted an op-ed entitled “Kerry was Right” after Kerry called for an Iraq withdrawal. Dowd said his change of heart was sparked in part by Bush’s refusal to meet the peace activist Cindy Sheehan at his Crawford estate in the summer of 2005. He also cited the expected deployment of his own son to Iraq. Dowd also criticized the president’s renomination of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton after his rejected confirmation. And he said he was shocked when the president did not immediately fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld following the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. On Sunday, White House counselor Dan Bartlett responded by saying Dowd’s comments should be evaluated in light of his “personal turmoil.”