President forced to defend Iraq and his own military record

Dana Milbank Page 1 Washington Post - Bush, in an hour-long interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," allowed that he had been surprised by the lack of weapons in Iraq. "I expected to find the weapons," he said in the session, taped Saturday and broadcast yesterday. But he said he did not take the nation to war under false pretense, adding: "I based my decision on the best intelligence possible."

In the Sunday talk-show interview, the first of his presidency in such a format, Bush also defended as honorable his Vietnam-era service in the National Guard and committed to the release of additional records to quell a renewed controversy over whether he fulfilled his military obligation.

He said his "biggest disappointment" in office is that he is perceived as dividing the country rather than uniting it. Using many of the same lines he employs in stump speeches, Bush repeated earlier assertions that the Iraq war was justified regardless of what weapons are found there.

Bush said it was unlikely those records still exist. Asked whether he would allow their release, he replied: "Yeah, if we still have them. But, you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records."

el - they sure did, the Bush campaign was there in 1999 and before.