Revelations May Hurt Bush's Image
By Glenn Kessler
Thursday, October 7, 2004;
Page A35One by one, official reports by government investigators, statements by former administration officials and internal CIA analyses have combined to undermine many of the central rationales of the administration's case for war with Iraq -- and its handling of the post-invasion occupation.
The release of yesterday's definitive account on Iraq's weapons -- and its conclusion that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction years before the U.S.-led invasion -- is only the latest in a series of damaging blows to the White House's strategy of portraying the war in Iraq as being on the cusp of success.
The report also comes just a few weeks after Democratic presidential challenger John F. Kerry gave new life to his campaign by emphasizing what he asserts is the gap between the president's rhetoric and the realities in Iraq.
This week, President Bush's former administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, broke with the administration to say officials had sent too few troops to Iraq and had allowed a culture of lawlessness to develop. The CIA, using information gathered after the invasion, cast doubt last week on whether Saddam Hussein aided Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate, as the administration repeatedly alleged before the war.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13150-2004Oct6.html