Incredibly Optimistic

"Before we went to war in Iraq, you said there were three main reasons for going to war in Iraq: weapons of mass destruction, the claim that Iraq was sponsoring terrorists that attacked us on 9/11, and that Iraq had purchased nuclear materials from Niger. Now, all three of those turned out to be false.

"My question is, how do we restore confidence that Americans may have in their leaders and to be sure that the information they're getting now is correct?"

Bush denied that he ever made a "direct connection" between Hussein and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- even though he often linked Baghdad with al-Qaeda generally.

But he agreed that it was a good question: "Like you, I mean, I asked that very same question: 'Where'd we go wrong on intelligence? ' . . .

"The truth of the matter is the whole world thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't just my administration. It was the previous administration. It wasn't just the previous administration. . . .

"Your question, however, the part that's really important is how do we regain credibility when it comes to intelligence?

"I mean, obviously, the Iranian issue is a classic case where we've got to make sure that when we speak there's credibility. . . .

"And so what I did was I called together the Silberman-Robb commission, Laurence Silberman and former Senator Chuck Robb, to take a full look at what went right and what went wrong on the intelligence; and how do we structure an intelligence network that makes sure there's full debate among the analysts; how do we make sure that there's a full compilation of data points that can help decision-makers like myself be comfortable in the decision we make. . . .

"And so there was a reform process they went through, a full analysis of how the operations worked. And out of that came the NDI, John Negroponte and Mike Hayden. And their job is to better correlate and make sure that the intelligence-gathering is seamless across a variety of gatherers and people that analyze.

"But the credibility of our country is essential. I agree with you."

Frank James writes in the Chicago Tribune's Washington blog about that exchange.

"The man who asked the question seemed to be saying to the president, 'You gave us pre-war information before that was incorrect. You asked us to trust you and we did. But you were wrong. You're asking us now to trust you again on Iraq. What can you offer us now that would make us trust that you've gotten it right this time?' . . .