Bush still misled America in State of Union Address

A new report in the Financial Times has the right screaming with glee!

A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger.

The inquiry by Lord Butler, which was delivered to the printers on Wednesday and is expected to be released on July 14, has examined the intelligence that underpinned the UK government's claims about the threat from Iraq.

The report will say the claim that Mr Hussein could deploy chemical weapons within 45 minutes, seized on by UK prime minister Tony Blair to bolster the case for war with Iraq, was inadequately supported by the available intelligence, people familiar with its contents say.

But among Lord Butler's other areas of investigation was the issue of whether Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. People with knowledge of the report said Lord Butler has concluded that this claim was reasonable and consistent with the intelligence.

First off this is not the same as saying the claim was true to begin with. The claim, according to Lord Butler, was simply a reasonable one to make based on the intelligence they had at the time. Whether that intelligence includes those now infamous forged documents is unclear until the full report is released.

Secondly, to use new facts to try and support a claim at the time was known to be specious at best doesn't vindicate the Bush Administration on any level. The CIA repeatedly warned the White House those claims by the British were dubious. The White House admitted Bush's claim was based on faulty intelligence and should not have been admitted into the State of the Union Address. All of the intelligence up to that point showed the claim was a fallacy.

New intelligence nearly a year and a half later does not suddenly change those facts. You can still say even after this report that the Bush Administration made a claim it had no backing for. It still did this on purpose, in order to make a case for the war in Iraq. It is still accurate, then, that the Bush Administration purposely misled America in order to bolster support for an invasion of Iraq.