WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush said Tuesday he was disappointed in "flawed intelligence" before the Iraq war and was concerned that if a Democrat wins the presidency in November and withdrew troops prematurely it could "eventually lead to another attack on the United States."

In an interview with Politico magazine and the Internet portal Yahoo, Bush also said he gave up golf in 2003 out of respect for U.S. soldiers killed in the war, which has now lasted more than five years.

"I didn't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Bush said he made his decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.

A question submitted from the online audience asked Bush whether he felt he had been misled about Iraq as he made the decision to go to war. "`Misled' is a strong word," he said. "Not only our intelligence community, but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was."

"Do I think somebody lied to me? No, I don't. I think it was just, you know, they analyzed the situation and came up with the wrong conclusion," he added.
. . . . . . .

But it was a third remark which, Olbermann stated, "makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitability to remain in office ... perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans."

In response to a leading question, Bush explained that he had given up golf in August 2003 because of the growing violence in Iraq. "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best I can with them."

"Do you think these families, Mr. Bush, their lives blighted forever, care about you playing golf?" Olbermann asked indignantly. "Do you think, sir, they care about you? ... You didn't give up your pursuit of this ... morally bankrupting war. ... You didn't even give up talking about Iraq. ... You didn't give up your presidency. ... Four thousand Americans give up their lives and your sacrifice was to give up golf?"

"The war in Iraq is not about you," Olbermann concluded. "It is not, Mr. Bush, about your grief. ... Your war is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations .. and about how you sent 4000 Americans to their deaths -- for nothing!"

"This last piece of advice. When somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss ... about the cooked books and fake threats .. about your gallant, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game ... shut the hell up!"

President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

The report shows an administration that "led the nation to war on false premises," said the committee's Democratic Chairman, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia. Several Republicans on the committee protested its findings as a "partisan exercise."

The committee studied major speeches by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials in advance of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and compared key assertions with intelligence available at the time.

Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said.

It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence.

Such assertions had a strong resonance with a U.S. public, still reeling after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Polls showed that many Americans believed Iraq played a role in the attacks, even long after Bush acknowledged in September 2003 that there was no evidence Saddam was involved.

The report also said administration prewar statements on Iraq's weapons programs were backed up in most cases by available U.S. intelligence, but officials failed to reflect internal debate over those findings, which proved wrong.