I'M A (MIS)BELIEVER:

CAMPAIGNING FOR BUSH: Franks says America not misled: Support of Iraq invasion was based on intelligence reports, retired general explains (ERIN NEFF, 10/11/04, Las Vegas REVIEW-JOURNAL)

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks said Sunday he did not mislead America when he strongly asserted before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"It's not a matter of misleading, it's a matter of misbelieving," Franks said in an exclusive interview with the Review-Journal prior to a 15-minute speech at a rally for President Bush at the Valley View Recreation Center in Henderson.

"I was an adamant guy," said Franks, commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003. "The reports we received in the (Department of Defense) and the intelligence community simply had me convinced.

"It was not as if anyone came and tried to persuade me," said Franks, who had been analyzing Iraq for more than a decade.

Several recent reports have concluded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and did not have the capability to create them. The Bush administration used Saddam's threat of weapons of mass destruction as a main reason to invade the country in 2003.

Franks stressed that military and political leaders in making decisions "never have the percentile of certainty." But he said he relied on his knowledge that Saddam had had weapons of mass destruction, had used them and had sought to enrich the program. He said Saddam also had given safe harbor to terrorists and had connections to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.

"I can't prove that he has weapons of mass destruction," Franks said of his viewpoint at the time. "But with sanctions failing, nor can I say he doesn't or won't."