Revisionist-in-Chief

President Bush's continued defense of the Iraq war signals a severe disconnection from reality and a dangerous direction for our country's future. More concerned with his political needs than the security of the country, he refuses to recognize the facts and act accordingly: there were no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in Iraq; there was no pre-9/11 collaboration between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; insurgencies in Iraq are growing not abating; and terrorist threats against Americans are increasing not decreasing.

• The president willfully overstated the Iraqi threat in order to convince the public to support a war that was not needed and did little to protect America. No one doubts that Saddam Hussein posed a long-term threat to the world. But he was contained in Iraq and posed no imminent threat. And as the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 Commission have independently reported, the entire case for war was built on faulty assumptions and flawed intelligence.
• In doing so, the Bush administration dropped the ball in the global war on terrorism. While the U.S. was mired in Iraq, global terrorists and rogue nations had a field day. The president failed to finish off al Qaeda in Afghanistan in order to topple Saddam and now the terrorists are regrouping. The administration secured less nuclear material from terrorists in the two years after 9/11 than in the two years prior to the attacks. And it allowed North Korea and Iran to rapidly build threatening nuclear capacities, including a quadrupling of North Korea's nuclear weapons capability in the past year alone.
• The president's doctrine of preemption – strike first, ask questions later – failed in its one and only test and must be discarded. The debacle in Iraq has ensured that the American public will remain skeptical of future conservative calls for pre-emptive wars. America reserves the right to protect itself, preemptively if necessary, when dangers are clear and imminent. But full out war has always been the final, not the first, course of action throughout our nation's history – a lesson the Bush administration should heed.

Daily Talking Points is a product of the Center for American Progress, a non-partisan research and educational institute committed to progressive principles for a strong, just and free America.