CIA: "Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up."
Sidney Blumenthal reports that Bush was explicitly told that Iraq had no WMDs six months before the March 2003 invasion:
On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail.
According to Robert Draper’s new book Dead Certain, however, Bush maintained otherwise “all the way up until Card’s departure in April 2006, almost exactly three years after the Coalition had begun its fruitless search for WMD’s.” The two former senior CIA officials interviewed by Blumenthal had this to say about Bush’s obstinate nature:
"The president had no interest in the intelligence," said the CIA officer. The other officer said, "Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up."
update (2:16pm):
Digby, no friend of Dubya, has an even harsher assessment in light of Dead Certain that is worth sharing:
I do realize that I loathe Bush on a visceral level and always have, so I can't say that my impressions of him as person are particularly objective. He is a personality type I can't stand --- his privileged, macho arrogance and nasty, sophomoric social game of primitive dominance are about the least appealing characteristics I can think of in a man. Even if he weren't a complete idiot, which he is, he'd still be an asshole.