White House aide says Bush did not lie about Iraq

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush did
not manipulate prewar intelligence about Iraq, a top White
House aide said on Sunday, as the administration pursued its
campaign against critics who say the president misled the
country.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley told CNN’s “Late
Edition” that Bush relied on the same intelligence that his
predecessor Bill Clinton saw and that 77 of 100 senators used
in 2002 to back Bush on the use of force in Iraq.

“I think the point that we need to emphasize here was,
allegations now that the president somehow manipulated
intelligence, somehow misled the American people are flat
wrong,” Hadley said.

With public support for the war in Iraq waning and polls
showing Bush reaching new lows in popularity, the White House
has begun to strike back at critics who have said his
administration misused intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction to justify the war.

Bush used his Veterans Day speech on Friday to defend his
use of intelligence, saying it was irresponsible to rewrite the
history of how that war began and that his critics were sending
the wrong signal to U.S. troops as well as to U.S. enemies.

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, sharply criticized
Bush’s speech in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“The president didn’t even tell the truth in his speech,”
Dean said. “He said that the Senate had the same intelligence
that everybody else did. That was not true. He withheld some
intelligence.”

The administration’s aggressive campaign followed stepped
up charges by Senate Democrats that top officials, particularly
Vice President Dick Cheney, manipulated intelligence on Iraq
and leaked classified information to discredit critics of the
war.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a top aide to Cheney, was indicted
last month for obstructing justice, perjury and lying after a
two-year investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative
Valerie Plame’s identity. Plame’s husband has said she was
outed to get back at him for his criticism of the war.

Democrats earlier this month imposed a rare closed session
of the Senate to push majority Republicans to complete a probe
on whether the prewar intelligence was misused.

Administration officials have acknowledged the intelligence
on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was faulty, but said
Democrats, Republicans as well as foreign intelligence agencies
believed Baghdad had stockpiles of deadly weapons before the
March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said on CNN that it
is not just a question of White House officials pressuring
analysts to change information. An earlier Senate investigation
found no such pressure.

Levin said it was more a question of how the White House
manipulated flawed intelligence, particularly as it related to
the relationship between ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
and al Qaeda.

“The intelligence community was dubious of that link, and
yet the president of the United States made out that link to
exist. He said there was no difference between al Qaeda and
Saddam Hussein,” Levin said.