[Edition 80] WASHINGTON D.C., Wednesday: George Bush will set up a Presidential Commission to investigate the decision to go to war against Iraq, and establish who he can blame for it during this year’s election. Yesterday, the US admitted it may never have gone to war if it had known those in the intelligence community could not be trusted to ‘find’ illegal weapons.

The man not responsible for the decision to go to war: President George Bush

[Edition 80] WASHINGTON D.C., Wednesday: George Bush will set up a Presidential Commission to investigate the decision to go to war against Iraq, and establish who he can blame for it during this year’s election.

Yesterday, the US admitted it may never have gone to war if it had known those in the intelligence community could not be trusted to ‘find’ illegal weapons.

“We told David Kay to ‘find’ some weapons,” said defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “Now I don’t know what ‘find’ means to you, but the fact that he didn’t ‘find’ anything demonstrates a complete lack of initiative. After all, we ‘found’ tons of evidence beforehand, if you know what I mean.”

White House aides said that as the search for illegal weapons wound down, the real search – to find someone to blame – was only just ramping up. They said an internal inquiry had already been conducted and the person who made Mr Bush’s Magic DecisionBall had been detained, “But it doesn’t stop there.”

Insiders denied that the President was using the inquiry to deflect attention away from the lack of success in Iraq. “No, no. We’re using other things to deflect attention, like terror alerts and immigration laws.”

Mr Bush lashed out at claims by anti-war protestors they are vindicated by the lack of WMD. “It’s very easy for them to be wise in hindsight about the fact they were right at the time.”

But in announcing the inquiry, Bush denied that he came up with the idea following Tony Blair’s total vindication in the Hutton inquiry.
“This will be a completely different type of whitewash.”

Meanwhile, the President will also establish an inquiry into who borrowed the money that he requested in his budget that has created a $500 billion annual deficit.