FROM TPM: In an interview with Charlie Gibson airing today, Bush says he was "unprepared for war," that his "biggest regret" is the "intelligence failure" in Iraq, and that he wishes "the intelligence had been different, I guess."

At last, Bush comes pretty close to getting it right in discussing his Administration and its legacy:

1. Bush was "unprepared for war:": Not so much so, if one is to read the PNAC Missions (and here)  that were written before 9/11. It instead looks like 9/11 offered good opportunity for the neocons to get the war in Iraq that they had wanted all along. Perhaps Bush meant to say that he and his ideologic buddies in PNAC were "unprepared to prosecute the war," in which case history will show him to be unfailingly accurate in this assessment.
2. "intelligence failure in Iraq": The record shows that the intelligence failure was not in Iraq. No, the lack of intelligence was located in the White House, where a President - who was ignorant and willing to fight for the right to remain ignorant - held sway under the direction of a cowardly, draft-dodging VP and others who chose to project their own penile insecurities (Oops! I mean "to project American Power") around the world by sending others to actually do the fighting.
3. Wishes "the intelligence would have been greater, I guess." Yeah, don't we all - especially the over 4,000 dead troops, the tens of thousands of American GI's who have suffered injury, and the 100's of thousands of Iraqi's (millions?) who are dead, injured, and/or homeless. They and their family members undoubtedly wish the U.S. had a President who was at least smart enough to refrain from launching a pre-emptive war just because tough-guy ideologues (who would not themselves have to fight, of course!) argued that it would be a really neat experiment in nation-building. ("Just pull the trigger, George, and I guarantee you that the victims will welcome us all as Liberators!" Just how much more lack of intelligence could have been applied here?)

For Bush, I guess this is pretty much as close as one would expect him to get in any effort at introspection and in assuming responsibility for past mistakes.

For our sake, however, let's hope that the final judgement of history on the Bush legacy shows that the American people finally replaced such ignorance in its leadership with an Obama Administraton that subsequently applied the smarts (and integrity!) required to get us out of the mess caused by Bush's "lack of intelligence." After all, Obama must now be successful in applying the intelligence required to overcome the ignorance that preceded him lest history shows that the Bush Administration was the fatal stab at the very heart of this Republic that sent it spiralling into its own defeat.