ABC's Vargas misquoted Bush taking responsibility for faulty Iraq intelligence

Written by Simon Maloy

Published

ABC News anchor Elizabeth Vargas falsely claimed that in his December 18 speech, President Bush accepted “full responsibility” for the faulty intelligence used in making the case for war. In fact, Bush said only that he accepted responsibility “for the decision to go into Iraq.”


During ABC News' special coverage of President Bush's December 18 address to the nation, anchor Elizabeth Vargas claimed falsely that in his speech, Bush accepted “full responsibility” for the faulty intelligence used in making the case for war. In fact, Bush took responsibility only for the decision to invade Iraq and noted simply that “much of the intelligence was wrong.”

From ABC News' special coverage of Bush's December 18 speech:

VARGAS: President Bush ending his remarks from the Oval Office tonight with the words of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, talking about the poem “Christmas Bells.” This was the first time -- not the first time, but certainly the most high-profile time he's actually directly addressed the failures in intelligence that led up to the war, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. He said, quote: “Much of the intelligence was wrong. I take full responsibility for that and for the decision to go to war.”

But Bush never claimed responsibility for faulty intelligence. As he has done in other recent speeches, Bush accepted responsibility for the decision to invade, but not for bad intelligence. From Bush's December 18 speech:

BUSH: It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Vargas is the most recent media figure to wrongly credit Bush for accepting responsibility for bad prewar intelligence. As Media Matters for America documented, Fox News host Brit Hume, CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'Brien, MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing, ABC host Robin Roberts, and National Public Radio (NPR) national political correspondent Mara Liasson also wrongly claimed that Bush took responsibility for failures in intelligence during a December 14 speech.