George W. Bush "to assume I wanted war is just flat wrong."

In an interview today George W. Bush said that "to assume I wanted war is just flat wrong." What does this really mean though? What is Bush really saying? Is he saying that he didn't want to go to war with Iraq or that it is just wrong to assume that?

First of all who is assuming? There is plenty of evidence that Bush had already made his mind up well before he went to the U.N. for a final resolution on the matter.

Bush met with Tony Blair about 2 months before the invasion. Bush made it clear that the diplomatic channels were being perused strategically around the U.S. military planning. This would only be done to help ensure that the neither the United Nations or anyone else could successfully derail his planned invasion.

Then there is the Downing Street Memo. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. The United States Attorney General made it clear that the removal of Saddam Hussein as justification for war would be illegal. This would then allow the U.S. to be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is why it was so important for our intelligence community to support the president concerning WMD issues.

At a private dinner at the White House George Bush asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. This occurred nine days after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered General Myers to determine if there was enough evidence to hit Saddam Hussein. This happened the afternoon of September 11, 2001. Only hours after we were attacked, but before we were able to assign blame to anyone.

The former White House counterterrorism director, Richard Clarke, admitted there was pressure from George W. Bush to link responsibility of September 11, to Iraq.

In February of 2002, General Tommy Franks was complaining about the U.S. military not being engaged in the war against terror in Afghanistan. Military and intelligence personnel were being withdrawn from Afghanistan and sent to Iraq over a year before the Iraq Invasion. This crippled any chance we had of capturing Bin Laden in Afghanistan. To this day he is still a free man.

Former Treasury Secretary under the Bush administration, Paul O‚’Neill, confirmed that Bush has been discussing ways to remove Saddam Hussein since the beginning of his presidency. This goal was discussed eight months before theattacks of September 11, 2001.

It should be noted that there were U.N. forces on the ground in Iraq before this war and they withdrew their forces that were looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the United States made it clear that their safety was in danger because warwas imminent. The U.N. was forced out of Iraq by U.S. aggression after it was clear that they would be very unlikely to find WMD in Iraq. Having U.N. forces there finding nothing was actually discrediting the Bush administrations case for war. This is why the U.S. essencially forced them to stop looking and leave the country.

This clearly was not one reporters assumption that Bush wanted to go to war. There are detailed steps that the Bush administration followed to lead up to this war. Mr. Bush is in the wrong if he was trying to make it look like this reporter was just making baseless accusations.