Iraq: Even Bill Gets It -- Sort Of

America must continue to fight in Iraq, at least through the parliamentary elections next month, before even considering a timebtable for withdrawal, said Bill Clinton at Westchester County Community College symposium earlier this week.

Other Clintonian revelations in the Journal News story:

-- If the United States pulled out now, he said, "Sunni Iraq would become the very terrorist hotbed they were accused of being before."

-- He does not believe President Bush lied when he linked Iraq to Al Qaeda, but was relying on the intelligence he was given;

-- He declared the recent constituional vote a success, saying that if the Iraqis can persuade the Sunni minority to participate democracy has a shot;

-- He himself did things in the interest of fighting terror that he was uncomfortable with, such as detaining suspects without charge or trial.

Meanwhile, former Clinton Administration official Nancy Soderbergh, when pressed by radio host Brian Lehrer on NPR-affiliate WNYC yesterday, admitted that the Bush administration didn't hype prewar intelligence on Iraq WMDs, with the exception of nuclear weapons, and that we must continue in Iraq.

"I thought he did have them...I got the intelligence for 10 years up until the war, and there was general assumption that he had weapons of mass destruction, primarily chemical and biological weapons," she said.

She spends the better of the interview blathering the usual "imminent threat" mythology and hypothesizing about how much trouble the Bush administration is in. But when pressed on the facts, concludes that based on what was known at the time and Saddam's behavior, the generally accepted view was that Saddam retained WMD.

She also says that Congressional Democrats did receive the same intelligence information about Iraqi WMD as the president, specifically the Democratic leadership in the Congress.