Bush: "Knowing what I know today, I would have still made that decision."

[Stephanie]

Bush says he would still invade Iraq, even without the threat of WMD or links to Al Queda.

ON WHAT GROUNDS???

This statement is OUTRAGEOUS.

HUME: It was an evident decision after the election to try to be above the political fray. You came under a grueling attack on the use of pre-war intelligence, on the Iraq policy itself. And the response that — the administration was remarkably passive for a long time. Why was that?

BUSH: I just came off an election, and we're trying to elevate the debate and put politics behind and see if that couldn't happen. It didn't happen. But I've always felt like one of my jobs is to try to change the tone in Washington, D.C., to bring people together for the common good. To the best of my ability, it was just that dragging the presidency in the name-calling and the finger-pointing and the blaming — but no, you're right.

And we took a blasting and have begun recently to make the case in a more forceful way to the American people, first of all rejecting this notion that, you know, we lied about intelligence, reminding people that some of those people making those accusations looked at the same intelligence I looked at and voted for use of force in Iraq.

***

HUME: Can you say today that if you had known then what you know now about the weapons, that you would have made the same decision.

BUSH: I said it today, and I said it at the last speech I gave.

And I've said it throughout the campaign to the American people. I said I made the right decision. Knowing what I know today, I would have still made that decision.

HUME: Now if you had this — if the weapons had been out of the equation, because the intelligence did not conclude that he had them, it was still the right call?

BUSH: Absolutely.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,178760,00.html