Bush Concedes Flaws in Iraq Weapons Data

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Sunday conceded for the first time that he relied on flawed assumptions and inaccurate information in launching the Iraq war, but he denied having intentionally misled the American people.

Sounding far from defensive, however, a forceful Bush said repeatedly that he had made the right decision to oust Saddam Hussein. “It’s a war of necessity,” the president said, declaring that he had “no choice” but to attack because the Iraqi dictator was a dangerous “madman.”

Beset by sagging job approval ratings and sharper attacks from the Democratic presidential candidates, Bush used an unusual hourlong interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to lay out his new rationale for the war, but also to mark the battle lines on which he intends to fight the coming election campaign.

In the most substantial shift so far from his previous position that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, Bush said Hussein’s ability to produce such weapons, coupled with his history of acquiring and using them, constituted sufficient grounds for the “regime change” in Baghdad.

“The man was a threat, and we dealt with him,” Bush said.

More broadly, he outlined positions on topics ranging from the economy to questions that have been raised about his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Bush asserted that he had fulfilled his obligations to the National Guard and agreed to open existing records on the subject. He also vigorously defended his stewardship of the economy and America’s foreign policy, saying that he looked forward to selling himself as a man who can “sit here in the Oval Office when times are tough and be steady and make good decisions.”

The wide-ranging interview was held Saturday at the White House but aired in full on Sunday. Bush and Tim Russert, host of “Meet the Press,” sat facing each other in straight-back armchairs in the middle of the Oval Office, with the presidential seal emblazoned on the carpet beneath them.

Throughout, the president stayed relentlessly “on message,” repeating himself so often on the issue of Iraq that he all but apologized for sounding “like a broken record.”

At the heart of the message was the image of Bush as a wartime leader whose first priority must always be the security of a threatened nation. “I’m a war president,” he said.

“I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind.”

In arguing that the attack on Iraq was justified even though weapons of mass destruction have not been found and may not have existed, Bush told Russert: “I believe it is essential that when we see a threat, we deal with those threats before they become imminent. It’s too late if they become imminent.”

Despite the now-discredited intelligence that Hussein had illicit weapons, the president said, “what wasn’t wrong was the fact that he had the ability to make a weapon.”

Bush’s admission that he had been wrong in his prewar assertions that Hussein had such weapons came during an exchange in which Russert quoted the president as having said on March 17, the night Bush launched the Iraq war:

“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”

“Right,” Bush replied.

“That apparently is not the case,” Russert said.

“Correct,” Bush said. “I expected to find the weapons.... I expected there to be stockpiles of weapons.”

The president then cited what he called theories about “where the weapons went,” adding: “Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country. And we’ll find out.”

Bush continued: “There is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron-clad, absolutely solid evidence. The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon.”

In embracing his latest position on why he ordered the invasion -- that Hussein was capable of acquiring illicit weapons -- Bush was responding to a series of recent events that had cast increasing doubt on his original assertions, namely that he had evidence that the Iraqi dictator possessed such weapons and therefore had to be disarmed immediately.

On Thursday, in a strongly worded public defense of the intelligence community, CIA Director George J. Tenet declared that his agency never warned Bush that Hussein’s regime posed an “imminent threat,” and he backed away from several claims about illicit weapons that the White House had used to justify the regime change in Baghdad.

Bush told Russert that he did not want to “get into word contests,” and adhered to his stance that Hussein was “a grave and gathering threat,” adding: “There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America.”

In abandoning his weapons claim, Bush also seemed to be discarding similar claims made by a coterie of top administration officials, from Vice President Dick Cheney down. As Russert noted, Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, like Bush, all have used the phrase “no doubt” in asserting their certainty that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq.

As recently as Jan. 22, Cheney sought vindication in a National Public Radio interview, saying: “We’ve found a couple of semitrailers at this point, which we believe were in fact part of [a banned weapons] program. I would deem that conclusive evidence, if you will, that [Hussein] did in fact have programs for weapons of mass destruction.”

For his part, the president has sought rhetorical refuge in finely formulated statements, such as his Jan. 20 State of the Union speech, in which he referred to Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.”

Bush appeared to blink back tears when Russert asked whether, in retrospect, the war’s loss of life was justified. “Every life is precious,” Bush said, but he added that removing Hussein was still justified.

And he seemed slightly taken aback when Russert asked him if he was “prepared to lose” his bid for a second term. “Well, I don’t plan on losing,” Bush replied. “I have got a vision for what I want to do for the country. See, I know exactly where I want to lead.”

That Bush felt the need to subject himself to questioning for a full hour was testament to the volatility of the presidential campaign, said Charlie Cook, an independent political analyst.

In a recent CNN/Gallup poll, Bush’s job approval rating fell from 60% at the beginning of January to 49% at the end -- the first time in his presidency that he registered below 50% in the Gallup poll. After watching the interview, Cook said he did not believe that Bush had changed many minds.

“If you were a supporter of his, he did fine. If you were a detractor, probably he did badly,” Cook said. “If you’re in middle, I’m not sure you come out with a favorable impression. Based on his performance, I don’t think the president made a lot of converts.”

Recalling Bush’s Thanksgiving Day trip to Baghdad, Hussein’s capture and an array of positive economic news in recent months, Cook said that Bush was “riding high” as recently as a month ago.

By the end of January, however, Bush’s poll numbers had fallen precipitously, especially after David A. Kay, whom the president had chosen to lead the search for weapons in postwar Iraq, resigned from the Iraq Survey Group and said Iraq did not have such weapons -- thus casting doubt on Bush’s oft-stated reason for going to war.

Kay said the United States had suffered from faulty prewar intelligence. Bush, moving to head off mounting calls for an independent investigation, Friday created a blue-ribbon commission to examine intelligence-gathering failures. He gave the panel until March 2005 to report back.

When Russert noted that the report would come after the November voting, Bush acknowledged it would prompt critics to accuse him of “trying to avoid responsibility” in the election campaign.

But Bush said, “There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made good calls, whether or not I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power.”

The president’s unequivocal admission that his prewar intelligence was erroneous drew a stinging attack from Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, who accused Bush of “changing his story” on his reason for going to war.

The president also conceded that U.S. troops in Iraq now are engaged in “nation building,” a concept he had opposed as a candidate in 2000. “But we’re also fighting ... so that they can build a nation,” Bush said.

On the economy, the president reiterated his belief that his across-the-board tax cuts played a major role in the nascent recovery. And even though most economists say this has largely been a “jobless recovery,” Bush offered a different view.

“It’s happening. It’s happening,” he said. “And there is good momentum when it comes to the creation of new jobs.” During his presidency, more than 2 million jobs have been lost, while the federal budget has gone from a $281-billion surplus to a $521-billion deficit.

Bush said his “biggest disappointment” to date has been his inability to lower the partisan tone here. “I’m not blaming anybody. It’s just the environment here is such that it is difficult to find common ground,” he said.

But the president said he has no intention to change or moderate his views. “I’m not going to change, see? I’m not trying to accommodate. I won’t change my philosophy or point of view. I owe it to the American people to say what I’m going to do and do it.”