American people deserve all the facts about Iraq war

"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind." With that statement, George W. Bush signaled Sunday what the thrust of his re-election campaign will be. And because of it, the president has a responsibility to make sure the American people clearly understand how he arrived at the decision to send our soldiers into Iraq.
Yet Bush, who appeared on NBC's "Meet The Press" with Tim Russert, was evasive when asked why the special presidential commission looking into intelligence assessments of the war in Iraq won't be issuing a report until March 2005.
"Shouldn't the American people have the benefit of the commission before the election?" Russert asked.
"Well, the reason why we gave it time is because we didn't want it to be hurried," Bush replied.
Hurried? Given that the administration's premise for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq has been credibly challenged, we believe a poste haste accounting of what intelligence was submitted to the White House and where the CIA and other agencies failed is warranted.
Why? Because as the president said Sunday, "There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made a good [call], whether or not I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power, and I look forward to that debate, and I look forward to talking to the American people about why I made the decisions I made."
Afghanistan
But how can the public make its assessment without all the facts? The invasion of Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on America's mainland is unquestioned. The Taliban government had provided Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attack, and his Al-Qaida terrorist network a safe haven and permitted them to set up training camps.
The ouster of the Taliban -- it resulted in bin Laden's fleeing into the mountains dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan -- by coalition forces led by the United States had the support of the United Nations.
Not so the invasion of Iraq. In justifying the deployment of American troops -- Britain was the only other major ally that participated -- Bush and other top administration officials contended that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which he was prepared to use against the U.S. and that his dictatorial regime had ties to Al-Qaida.
No WMDs have been found in the 11 months the Americans and British have occupied Iraq and no ties to Al-Qaida have been revealed.
Bush has said that his decision to invade was based on information provided by the intelligence community. But CIA Director George Tenet said last week that the agency did not forward any information that warranted the conclusions drawn by the administration.
Given this apparent disconnect between what the CIA knew and what Bush said it knew, a full disclosure of the presidential commission's investigation is demanded -- before the November election.
This is not about politics, as the president suggests. It's about giving the American people all the facts so they can consider Bush's status as a "war president."