A VOICE OF REASON

But who listens?

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks says that President Bush didn't discuss an invasion of Iraq with him until Dec. 28, 2001, and that intelligence indicating Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was incorrect and "incomplete."...

When Bush did address the possibility of invading Iraq, Franks told a crowd Wednesday at a fund-raiser that the president voiced hope that it wouldn't happen.

"He told me he hoped not one American boot ever touches Iraq except by invitation," Franks said.

Franks also told the audience about his interactions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the days following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. A day after the attacks, Franks told Rumsfeld that he thought Osama Bin Laden was responsible.

Franks criticized the media and the investigation by the Sept. 11 commission.

"We do not need people to ask about yesterday. We need people to ask about the future," he said...

Before his speech, Franks told reporters that the invasion of Iraq seemed necessary because of the possibility that Iraq would join terrorists and attempt to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States.

"The fact is that all of us believed that we were going to see weapons of mass destruction," Franks said in a story in Thursday's editions of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. "And the intelligence that indicated all of that to us simply was incomplete. It simply was not correct."