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12/15/2005:

"Bush Says Iraq War Was Justified Even Though Intelligence Wrong"

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.
bloomberg.com