There was bipartisan consensus on Iraq's threat. Bill Clinton and Al Gore received the same intelligence before Dubya took office, and they reached the identical conclusion. That reason #1 why the conspiracy theory that Bush knowingly went to war under false pretenses is untenable.

Reason #2, multiple congressional investigations led by Democrats with no wish to see Bush exonerated failed to find even a shred of evidence that intelligence was falsified.

Reason #3, what reason did Bush have for going to war under false pretenses? To garner popularity? If he knew that no WMD would be found, then he would have known it would be an enormous embarrassment. If he could co-opt the entire military and intelligence community into deceiving congress and the American people, and keeping it quiet, why couldn't he arrange to plant the missing evidence, or get a friendly country in the region to do so? Faking the evidence would have been easy, if he knew no real evidence would be found, and would have avoided huge political problems.

Nov 13
at
6:44 AM