Wrong Intelligence

For some unknown reason (Honestly. I don't have any logical explanation), I was watching the last interview of first couple, George and Laura Bush, on ABC News today. The interview was conducted by Charlie Gibson.

I don't expect you to go through the torture of listening to him so here is the excerpt from his interview that caught my attention:

GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

Now let me put it straight. As I understand this conversation, Bush would have been happy if Iraq had WMDs (Weapon of Mass Destruction) but not if the intelligence has rightly informed him about absence of any (Actually you would need to watch the interview for his expression at that speculation).

And here I thought that would have been a much better option. The US army wouldn't have lost so many soldiers. US wouldn't be center of World criticism. So much money could have been saved. All the pluses. No Minus. But if he hadn't plunged US in a war then he wouldn't be a Republican President now, would he?

P.S.: I think this was part II of the interview. The interview transcript is here. The page on which the above excerpt is here.