Bush, Advisers Misled US on Iraq: Senate Report

Dem-led committee blasts administration; Republicans dismiss 'partisan exercise'
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 5, 2008 2:19 PM CDT
Bush, Advisers Misled US on Iraq: Senate Report
President Bush pauses during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 2, 2008, for Army Pfc. Ross McGinnis, of Knox, Pa., who was killed in Baghdad.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The Bush administration distorted facts in justifying the invasion of Iraq and overstated Saddam Hussein’s links to al-Qaeda, a long-delayed report from the Senate intelligence committee concludes. Bush and his advisers also ignored doubts about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction in constructing their case for military action, Reuters reports.

"Representing to the American people that [Iraq and al-Qaeda] had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false pretenses," Democrat John Rockefeller said. Four Republican committee members protested the conclusion, calling the report a "partisan exercise" in an accompanying dissent. (More Saddam Hussein stories.)

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