Helen Thomas Rocks

[Rspaight]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 401-2.html

Q Back to the report on the botched WMD intelligence, have the massive intelligence failures documented in the report caused the President to rethink his policy of preventive war?

MR. McCLELLAN: You know, September 11th taught us a very important lesson, and that lesson was that we must confront threats before it is too late. If we had known of those attacks ahead of time, we would have moved heaven and earth to prevent them from happening.

This President will not hesitate when it comes to protecting the American people. And in the post-September 11th world that we live in, the consequences of underestimating the threat we face is too high. It's tens of -- possibly tens of thousands of lives.

Q What about the cost of overestimating?

MR. McCLELLAN: Are you talking about the Iraq situation?

Q Going into Iraq, yes, with bad intelligence.

MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've talked about this before. The world is safer with Saddam Hussein's regime removed from power. The Iraqi people are serving as an example to the rest of the Middle East through their courage and determination to build a free future.

Q The ones that are alive, you mean?

[CitizenDan]

Nice. How sad that she's virtually one of a kind among the Beltway press corps.

[Dob]

The Iraqi people are serving as an example to the rest of the Middle East through their courage and determination to build a free future.

Sounds like something one of the insurgents might say...I guess the idea of "free future" often depends on one's point of view.