Responsibility

[Theophylact]

From today's press conference:

REPORTER: Mr. President, others have said that those words about Iraq and Africa did not belong in your State of the Union address. Will you take personal responsibility for those words? [...second, unrelated question]

MR. BUSH: Well, first, I take responsibility for putting our troops into action. And I made that decision because Saddam Hussein was a threat to our security and a threat to other nations. I take responsibility for, making the decision, the tough decision to put together a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein. Because the intelligence, not only our intelligence but the intelligence of this great country [gesturing towards P.M. Blair], made a clear and compelling case that Saddam Hussein was a threat to security and peace. I say that because he possessed chemical weapons and biological weapons. I strongly believe he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons programs. And I will remind the skeptics that in 1991 it became clear that Saddam was much closer to developing a nuclear weapon than anyone had imagined. He was a threat. I take responsibility for dealing with that threat. We're in a war against terror. And we will continue to fight the war against terror. We're after al- Qaeda, as the Prime Minister accurately noted and we're dismantling al-Qaeda. The removal of Saddam Hussein is an integral part of winning the war against terror. A free Iraq will make it much less likely that we will find violence in that immediate neighborhood. A free Iraq will make it more likely we'll get a Middle-Eastern peace. A free Iraq will have incredible influence on the states that could potentially unleash terrorist activity on us. And, yeah, I take responsibility for making the decisions I made.

(The portion of Mr. Bush's response in which he takes responsibility for his own words is highlighted in bold.)

(Thanks to Busy, Busy, Busy .)

[Knothead]

Heh.

oops, I'm trying to stay outta these threads!