George W. Bush says the biggest regret of his presidency was the intelligence failure concluding that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
When in March 2003 Bush ordered the US-led invasion of Iraq, it was largely justified on grounds that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction. That later proved to be false.
"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush said in an interview with ABC's World News on Monday.
"That's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess,"
AP quoted him as saying. When asked if he would have ordered the US-led invasion if intelligence reports had accurately indicated that Saddam did not have the weapons, Bush said, "You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.”
It's called trying to save his ass from War Crime prosecution!
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In Washington there is a move to create a "truth commission," supposedly to get to the bottom of what went wrong over the last eight years. That might work for a nation without established laws, or a constitution that has clearly defined parameters for Treason and for flagrantly criminal behavior; but it is insufficient for what has happened to the United States.
The Bush administration's infatuation with presidential power has finally pushed the country over a constitutional precipice. As of New Year's Day, ongoing combat in Iraq is illegal under US law.
As George W. Bush and Dick Cheney make their case for some positive legacy from the past eight years, two arguments are playing key roles: the notion that torturing terror suspects saved American lives and the belief that Bush’s Iraq troop “surge” transformed a disaster into something close to “victory.”
George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.
