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Its not that they knew there were no weapons. That's simply not the issue here. They probably did believe that weapons would be found, just as many others in Washington, including Democrats, believed.
But as the President of the United States, it was Bush's responsibility to make damn sure that he knew Iraq had WMD and was a threat to our nation; sure enough to justify the deaths of each and every soldier who has died in this war.
Powell now says our evidence might not have been solid. He should have found that out before we decided to put our troops in harm's way. He says he made sure they were "multi-sourced", but he never made sure they were 100% accurate. He and the administration are going to try to unfairly shift their responsibility onto the intelligence community, which was repeatedly pressured by the administration to provide evidence to justify the war. As Richard Clarke has revealed, the Bush administration reaction to unfavorable intelligence was "try again".
Whatever happened to "the buck stops here"? After Clinton spent most of his term ducking from responsibility, I thought perhaps President Bush would change the tone in Washington and begin to accept responsibility for his actions. Instead, he has refused to even look into his mistakes, initially opposing both this commission and the 9-11 commission.
President Bush says he would do it again if he had the chance, but I'd like to see him say that to all the soldiers who have died in this war, to the guys who were senselessly mutilated this week, to their families who will never see them again. Taking the country to war is a great responsibility. Unfortunately, President Bush has abused this responsibility and in my opinion has proven himself to be incapable of leading this nation.
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