Bush Says War Was Justified Even Though Intelligence Wrong
Bush Says Iraq War Was Justified Even Though Intelligence Wrong
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Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush accepted responsibility for taking the U.S. to war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence while saying the invasion still was justified by the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and international terrorism.
``It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong,'' Bush said today in the final speech in a series intended to outline his Iraq strategy. ``Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision.''
Bush spoke a day before Iraqis go to the polls to elect a new parliament, a step that the administration is counting on to help stabilize the country enough that the U.S. can begin bringing some its 160,000 troops home.
Tying together his arguments from three previous speeches over the past two weeks on why the U.S. must stay engaged in Iraq, Bush said that even though the original rationale for the war turned out to be false -- that Hussein was compiling biological and chemical weapons -- the invasion was critical to the safety of the U.S.
The government is addressing the mistakes that led intelligence agencies to the wrong conclusions just as the U.S. is adjusting its tactics in Iraq to fix past missteps, he said.
``I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq,'' the president said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. ``I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities, and we're doing just that.''
Benchmarks
In four addresses since Nov. 30, the president responded to prompting from Democrats and senior Republican lawmakers such as Senators Richard Lugar and John Warner that the administration give the public clear benchmarks for progress in Iraq and make regular reports to lawmakers on meeting those goals.
One of the milestones will be reached tomorrow as millions of Iraqis will go to polling stations nationwide tomorrow to cast ballots for more than 7,000 candidates from 300 parties vying for 275 seats in the new Iraqi parliament.
That vote is ``crucial'' for Iraq and for the battle against terrorists who are making a stand there, Bush said.
The election means Iraq ``will be the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world,'' Bush told about 500 invited guests of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a non-partisan organization of foreign policy professionals and scholars.ÿ``Yet we need to remember that these elections are also a vital part of a broader strategy for protecting the American people against the threat of terrorism.ÿ''
Spreading Democracy
Successful elections in Iraq also will help spread democracy throughout the region, Bush said.
``Freedom in Iraq will inspire many reforms from Damascus to Tehran,'' Bush said. When Iraq can govern, sustain and defend itself, ``we will gain an ally in the war on terror and a partner for peace in the Middle East.''
He warned that electing a parliament won't end violence in Iraq, and setting a deadline to pull U.S. troops from the country ``would be a recipe for disaster.''
``We will fight this war without wavering and we will prevail,'' Bush said. ``We cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory is achieved.''
Before his speech, Bush met with more than a dozen House Democrats. U.S. Representative Steve Israel of New York said afterward that the president was trying ``to dampen expectations.''
``The elections may not change the security overnight,'' Israel, a member of the House Armed Service Committee said.
`Dose of Reality'
He called the briefing a ``dose of reality'' that was ``just refreshing.''
Senator Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat who has not joined a call for a withdrawal timetable from some members of his party, offered limited praise for Bush's effort to regain public support for the war in Iraq. He said Bush has made important acknowledgments of mistakes, though he hasn't offered the kind of detailed shift in U.S. strategy and tactics that will convince Americans the U.S. is on a winning path.
``The president has, for the first time, seemed to have come to grips with the failure of the policy to date,'' Biden said at a news conference yesterday at the Capitol.
Bush ``doesn't state with any specificity'' how the U.S. will ``change the course, rather than stay the course'' to make sure the new Iraqi government functions effectively, Biden said.
Bush acknowledged Monday for the first time that the U.S. effort to topple Hussein's regime and establish a democracy has been marked by turmoil and violence that has cost the lives of about 30,000 Iraqis and 2,140 U.S. military personnel.
Public Support
Polls show U.S. public support for the war is declining, and Bush is facing questions from members of Congress about his plans and the costs of the conflict.
In a Dec. 2-6 poll by the New York Times and CBS News, 59 percent of U.S. adults said they disapproved of the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq, compared with 72 percent who approved at the start of the conflict in March 2003.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to give members of the Senate a non-classified briefing in the Capitol today on the administration's plans for Iraq. Bush also has called Democratic and Republican lawmakers to the White House for discussions about Iraq.
Some Democrats said Bush has fallen short of his goal of building support.
``The president is 0-3 in his last three speeches,'' Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at a news conference just before Bush spoke. ``In order to support the mission, the American people need to know the remaining military and political benchmarks.''
