White House blasts N.Y. Times editorial

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The White House says an editorial in The New York Times newspaper was in error when it took President George Bush to task on pre-Iraq War intelligence.

The editorial, published Sunday and entitled "The Deluder In Chief," accused Bush of misrepresenting the history of the 2003 Iraq invasion and claimed he and Vice President Dick Cheney "justified that unnecessary war using intelligence reports that they knew or should have known to be faulty."

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, however, says the Times got that wrong, declaring in a statement, "While the president has repeatedly acknowledged the mistakes in the pre-war intelligence, there is no support for the Times' claim that the president and his national security team 'knew or should have known (the intelligence) to be faulty' or that 'pressure from the White House' led to particular conclusions."

Hadley said that while Bush regrets pre-war Iraq intelligence -- such as the claim that President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- turned out to be inaccurate, it was the same "intelligence that members of Congress, foreign governments as well as the administration all believed to be accurate."