Posted on 12/14/2005 2:37:48 PM PST by presidio9
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday the responsibility for invading Iraq based in part on faulty weapons intelligence rested solely with him, taking on the issue in his most direct and personal terms in the 1,000-plus days since the war's first shots.
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush said. "As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq."
The president's mea culpa was accompanied by a robust defense of the divisive war.
"Saddam was a threat — and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power," Bush declared, as he has before.
Democrats were not moved by Bush's speech, the last of four designed to boost his credibility on the war and the public's backing for it.
"There was no reason for America to go to war when we did, the way we did, and for the false reasons we were given," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass.
Bush offered few qualms about the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said foreign intelligence agencies — including several for governments who didn't back his decision to invade — also believed before the war that Saddam Hussein possessed them. And he said his administration has begun making changes to the U.S. intelligence apparatus to head off future errors.
The president also contended the Iraqi president had intended to restart weapons programs.
As in the past, Bush acknowledged no regrets about launching the war despite the problems with his initial justification. He revisited a long list of other previously cited reasons, including Iraqi violations of a no-fly zone in its airspace, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait a decade earlier and Iraq's defiance of United Nations resolutions.
"My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision," the president said to polite applause from his audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan forum for the study of world affairs.
Bush has repeatedly noted that the decision to go to war was his responsibility. And he has acknowledged for more than a year that most of the intelligence behind the claims of Saddam's weapons programs turned out to be faulty. But he has never linked the two so clearly and so personally.
On the eve of parliamentary elections in Iraq, Bush's speech was meant to wrap up an aggressive push-back against war critics with an overarching explanation, nearly three years later, of why he went into Iraq and why he believes U.S. troops must remain there.
Bush predicted a higher turnout than in earlier balloting of Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs in Thursday's voting, which will establish Iraq's first permanent, democratically elected government. The Sunnis provide the backbone of the insurgency and largely shunned Jan. 30 elections for an interim Parliament that wrote the nation's constitution. Their participation was higher in the October election to adopt the constitution.
But the president also said that Americans shouldn't hope for violence to wane, and shouldn't even expect to know results before early January.
"We can ... expect that the elections will be followed by days of uncertainty," he said. "It's going to take awhile."
Wednesday's remarks followed a pattern of more frank talk from Bush on Iraq. Each installment in the recent round of Iraq speeches, which began last month at the Naval Academy, has included descriptions of fixes for early mistakes and sober assessments of remaining challenges.
That reflects the majority of Americans who, confronted with daily doses of bad news and rising death counts in Iraq, disapprove of Bush's policies there and question the outlook for victory. For instance, a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that most people see progress in areas such as establishing democracy and training Iraqi security forces but are split on whether the United States is defeating the insurgents.
Answering critics who have said he's offered no definition of victory in Iraq, Bush offered a succinct summation.
"Victory will be achieved by meeting certain objectives: when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country," he said. "These objectives, not timetables set by politicians in Washington, will drive our force levels in Iraq."
Still, some said they had hoped to hear more specific benchmarks.
"The American public, the Iraqi people and our brave troops still don't have any clarity about the U.S. military mission in Iraq," said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis.
The president's approach received a warmer welcome from several House Democrats whom Bush hosted at the White House for a top-level Iraq briefing before his speech.
"There was a dose of reality that I have not heard before," said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y.
My eyes zeroed in on that phrase right away.
It's really not a hard concept to wrap your arms around.
What part of Comander in Cheif do you need explained to you? Perhaps it is the "authorization of force" or the "violation of 1991 Gulf War Armeistence" that so confuses the psuedo Conservatives. But that's right, don't bother you with facts, you are too busy being paranoid about your own Goverment to deal with reality right?
False assumption on your part not backed up by facts. There is NOTHING in the Constitution that describes how the Congress "Declares War". You contention that Congress did NOT authorize the use of force in Iraq is so childishly absurd as to indicate you are NOT interested in serious discussion of the facts. You may wander back to DU now. No one will take your absurd inability to grasp the fundamental legal lines of authority on Iraq seriously here.
If the rumors are true, Bush thinks that the Constitution is "just a g-dd----- piece of paper."
I did a search and I couldn't find any proof that the president said this
While congress issued The "Use of force", it did not authorise "War". This is what gets the libs in their panties. Without a declaration of war we do not have to follow the Geneva Conventions, which we are anyways.
I get sick of this....Ask anyone in America now why we went to "War" and see if they mention U.N. Resolution 1441?
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush said. "As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq."
Associate Press is biased against the president. They're twisting the president's words.
how much of any public 'acknowledgement' or 'admission' will the LL use against Bush toward an impeachment? seems that is their agenda/goal.
An authorization for the use of force is a de facto declaration of war. The US Constitution is silent on themethods of declaring war. Congress could just as easily issue a one sentence statement, to wit, "Kick Iraq's collective ass." and that would be a declaration of war as well.
I get sick of this....Ask anyone in America now why we went to "War" and see if they mention U.N. Resolution 1441?
Hey, I get sick of people reading anything they want into the constitution. Why don't you read me the prescribed methods for "declaring war" in that document?
"Victory is not a strategy." - Congressman Jack Murtha, (D-PA).
"The original means of strategy is victory--that is tactical success--it's ends, in the final analysis, are those objects which will lead directly to peace." - Karl von Clauswitz, On War, 1832.
"Victory alone is not everything — but is it not, after all, what really counts?" - Karl von Clauswitz, On War, 1832.
Clauswitz Quoted
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/672976/posts
500 tons of uranium, 1.7 tons of enricjed uranium, illegal weapons programs all controlled by a state with torture rooms, rape rooms, condonning people fed alive into plastic shredders feet first. Taking Saddam out was the right thing to do. The Iraq War has been great success and continues to be successful.
All the attacks on the Bush Administration could prove terrible beyond belief if it causes too much delay with dealing with Iran,North Korea, or Syria (where Russian trucks took many of the WMD components and weapons they were illegally selling Iraq), think about it.
Apparently in the mind of Mr. Feingold this is an achievement which is unattainable unless politics dictates that the Democratic party is in full majority.
Perhaps a swift slap to the face would wake him up to reality?
Anyone in WI game for helping him in his endeavors?
NO! Clinton's legacy is the President of the United States trying to fix a court case and in the process denying an American citizen her day in court, Justice. Damn the blue dress!
And STILL who gets the MSM praise for effective federal governing?
I think you lost me Sir on that whole nation building thing... You really blindsided me with that one...can I ask that when we wax Iran that we do not undertake another Nation Building exercise. .i.e. no American tax payer funding, lives, mindshare etc? Tired of paying people that hate us and want us killed..Its kind of an insult right?
'news' --> no new news here, folks
'bio' ---> dissipated, hedonistic, neer-do-well blacksheep red-headed step child of robber baron family extraction
'voting record' --> yellow dog democratic leftist liberal
Nothing to see here, folks! Move along, now.
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