Bush Accepts Responsibility For Fixing Intel

OK, so I didn't watch or listen to Bush's speech on Iraq this morning, but I did watch a little of the post-speech coverage on CNN. Although it sounds like Bush just recycled a bunch of stuff he's been saying about Iraq for a couple years now, I did notice that CNN was putting on the bottom of the screen: "BUSH ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR, FIXING INTEL."

I knew that Bush would never admit that his regime fixed the intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq Debacle, but just for a second I thought that maybe he had come clean on all that. I think whomever prepared that screen caption meant that Bush promised to fix (i.e., repair) the system behind the "bad" intelligence that Bush claims forced him to invade a fourth-rate military power that couldn't even threaten its own neighbors let alone the United States.

But the word "fix" for me now means something more akin the what it means in the phrase "the fix is in," particularly given what the Downing Street Memo had to say about Bush's attitude in the summer before the Iraq Invasion:

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.