Truth is, there is no proof Bush lied about Iraq, WMD

Nov. 16, 2005 – AP

Making a mistake is a far cry from telling an outright lie!

President Bush is in the throes of a crushing belief amount Americans that the war in Iraq is a mistake.  Yet the conclusion to that war remains to be determined.

His harshest critics, though, are leveling unfair volleys against the administration, saying flat out that Bush lied about the intelligence that suggested that former-Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Was the President mistaken?  It is clear that he was, as were many members of Congress who have become the president’s most ardent foes over the war.

Bush was far from alone in believing the intelligence.  Democrats John Kerry,

Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Al Gore and Bill Clinton - - as well as intelligence experts in Germany, France and Great Britain - - believed that Saddam had an arsenal of WMD.  Yet they have turned on the President, saying he lied, which means that, in effect, he told the CIA, “Never mind that the intelligence said he doesn’t have the weapons, we’re going to say he does anyway and then we’re going to go to war.”

Such a notion takes political cynicism to new depths.

The fact remains that we’re in this fight to the finish.  Americans cannot pull out now before the job is done. (Emphasis mine)  The nation will debate for decades whether it fought this war for the right reasons.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the intelligence system failed.  What is nowhere near proven is that the commander in chief knew that it failed and still went to war. (Emphasis mine.)