Since Bush has gone on the offensive in defending his decision to go to war, I have been skeptical of what he has been saying. Here is a point-by-point rebuttal of many of the points he has been making (edited). For the complete article, go to: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13185357.htm

ASSERTION: In a Veterans Day speech last Friday, Bush said that Iraq war "critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs."
CONTEXT: Bush is correct in saying that a commission found no evidence of "politicization" of the intelligence. But neither that report nor others looked at how the White House characterized the intelligence. That's supposed to be the topic of a second phase of study by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

ASSERTION: In his speech, Bush noted that "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence - voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."
CONTEXT: This isn't true. The Congress didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief. As for prewar intelligence on Iraq, senior administration officials had access to other information and sources that weren't available to lawmakers. Cheney and his aides visited the CIA and other intelligence agencies to view raw intelligence reports, received briefings and engaged in highly unusual give-and-take sessions with analysts. Moreover, officials in the White House and the Pentagon received information directly from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), circumventing U.S. intelligence agencies, which greatly distrusted the organization. All of the exiles' claims turned out to be bogus or remain unproven. War hawks at the Pentagon also created a special unit that produced a prewar report not shared with Congress. After the report was leaked in November 2003 to a conservative magazine, the Pentagon disowned it.

ASSERTION: In his Veterans Day address, Bush said that "intelligence agencies around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein."
CONTEXT: Bush is correct in saying that many intelligence agencies, particularly in Europe, believed that Saddam was hiding some weapons of mass destruction capabilities - not necessarily weapons. But they didn't agree with other U.S. assessments about Saddam. Few, with the exception of Great Britain, argued that Iraq was an imminent threat, or that it had any link to Islamic terrorism, much less the Sept. 11 attacks. France, backed by several other nations, argued that much more time and effort should have been given to weapons inspections in Iraq before war was launched.

ASSERTION: Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, told reporters last Thursday that the Clinton administration and Congress perceived Saddam as a threat based on some of the same intelligence used by the Bush administration.
CONTEXT: Congress did pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which stated U.S. support for regime change in Iraq and provided up to $97 million in overt military and humanitarian aid to opposition groups in Iraq. But it didn't authorize the use of U.S. force against Iraq.
Clinton said his bombing order was based on Iraq's refusal to comply with weapons inspections, a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War.