President George W. Bush, at a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., today, admitted that the prewar Iraq intelligence was faulty.

“When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As President, I’m responsible for the decision to go into Iraq — and I’m also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we’re doing just that,” Bush said.

The speech was the fourth in a series of speeches this week that Bush gave to shore up support for staying in Iraq.

“September the 11th also changed the way I viewed threats like Saddam Hussein,” he said. “In an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.”

Bush defended his decision to go into Iraq despite the faulty intelligence. “Given Saddam’s history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision,” he said. “Saddam was a threat — and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power.”

And he defined victory. “Victory will be achieved by meeting certain clear objectives: when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country. These objectives, not timetables set by politicians in Washington, will drive our force levels in Iraq. As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And when victory is achieved, our troops will then come home, with the honor they have earned,” he said.