The White House this morning said their “central objection” to Scott McClellan’s new book is that the former press secretary says President Bush “misled” the U.S. into war in Iraq.
“The reason he did not raise objections at the time was that there was nothing to object to. He has hindsight now to object to the war,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino this morning, who said the U.S. went to war based on “the intelligence that we had.”
Mrs. Perino said that the Bush administration has taken steps to improve their intelligence gathering and analysis “to deal with our intelligence failures.”
But, she said, “he’s suggesting that we purposely misled.”
“There is no new evidence of that,” Mrs. Perino said.
“It’s his right to change his mind after the fact. He’s free to have his opinions. But he’s not free to suggest that people here, from the president on down, purposely misled the American people into war. That is what is so hurtful to those of us hear at the White House,” she said.
— Jon Ward, national political reporter, The Washington Times
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