Quote:

"Politically the president really needs to explain this to the American people," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee who supported the Iraq war. "It undermines his ability to continue to talk to the American people about the war on terrorism."



Quote:

President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday sidestepped demands for outside review of pre-war intelligence on Iraq (news - web sites), but said it was important to know all the facts surrounding White House assertions Iraq's illicit weapons justified the U.S. decision to invade.

"I want the American people to know that I, too, want to know the facts," Bush told reporters at the White House.


Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) has broken party ranks to join Democratic demands for an independent probe into how U.S. intelligence got it wrong given the failure by searchers to find weapons of mass destruction Bush insisted were in Iraq.


"McCain is the guiding light on this," said a Republican insider who predicted that the Bush administration may shift its view and accept an investigation.