Senior Bush administration officials adjusted their defense today of President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa, insisting that the phrasing was accurate even if some of the underlying evidence was unsubstantiated
Condeleeza Rice, the national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in separate appearances on Sunday television talk shows that the disputed sentence in Mr. Bush's January speech was carefully hedged, enough that it could still be considered accurate today.
The legalistic defense of the phrasing seemed to signal a shift in the focus of the White House's strategy in dealing with the political fallout over Mr. Bush's public use of evidence that was based in part on fabricated documents and in part on uncorroborated reports from abroad.
So now we are sending our soldiers off to war based on carefully hedged statements?
Bush lies. Soldiers die.