US President Bush admitted publicly for the first time on Wednesday that the decision to go to war in Iraq was based on wrong intelligence, but still firmly defended this decision. "We cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory is achieved," he said in a speech.
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq," the American leader told a foreign policy gatherin on the eve of general elections in Iraq. "And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that."
"We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of brutal dictator," Bush stated. "It is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in his place. "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power," the president added.
