"History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided — that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder," McClellan wrote in "What Happened," due out Monday. "No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact."... "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary,"

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"As a Texas loyalist who followed Bush to Washington with great hope and personal affection and as a proud member of his administration, I was all too ready to give him and his highly experienced foreign policy advisers the benefit of the doubt on Iraq,"... "Unfortunately, subsequent events have showed that our willingness to trust the judgment of Bush and his team was misplaced."

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"President Bush has always been an instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader. He is not one to delve into all the possible policy options — including sitting around engaging in extended debate about them — before making a choice,"... "Rather, he chooses based on his gut and his most deeply held convictions. Such was the case with Iraq."

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"My job was to advocate and defend his policies and speak on his behalf,"... "This is an opportunity for me now to share my own views and perspective on things. There were things we did right and things we did wrong. Unfortunately, much of what went wrong overshadowed the good things we did."

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"I know the president pretty well. I believe that, if he had been given a crystal ball in which he could have foreseen the costs of war — more than 4,000 American troops killed, 30,000 injured and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis dead — he would never have made the decision to invade, despite what he might say or feel he has to say publicly today,"

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"'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'"

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be?"... "How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense."

[Bush} "isn't the kind of person to flat-out lie."

"So I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine. It's the first time when I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true,"... "And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious — political convenience."
"sometimes he convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment."

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"Bush, similarly, has a way of falling back on the hazy memory to protect himself from potential political embarrassment,"... "In other words, being evasive is not the same as lying in Bush's mind."

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"I was struck by how deft [Condi Rice] is at protecting her reputation,"... "No matter what went wrong, she was somehow able to keep her hands clean, even when the problems related to matters under her direct purview, including the WMD rationale for the war in Iraq, the decision to invade Iraq ... and post-war planning and implementation of the strategy in Iraq."

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"But whatever her policy management shortcomings, Rice knew public relations well. She knew how to adapt to potential trouble, dismiss brooding problems and come out looking like a star,"... "Few performed better under the spotlight, glossing over mistakes with her effortless eloquence and understated flair."

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