Bill O'Reilly's Iraq Mea Culpa

Fox News Anchor Sorry He Believed WMD Claims About Iraq

(AP)  Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly says he was wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that's made him more skeptical of the Bush administration as a result.

O'Reilly, who has the top-rated political talk show on cable news, was confronted on ABC's “Good Morning America” about his statement before the Iraq war that if Saddam Hussein is overthrown and there were no such weapons found, he'd apologize to the nation.

“Well, my analysis was wrong and I'm sorry,” O'Reilly said.

“I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at the time,” he added..

O'Reilly places the blame on intelligence officials for their pre-war assessments.

“I don't think there's any doubt about that George W. Bush wanted to remove Saddam,” he said. “And in history, I believe that will be a good thing ... But I think every American should be very concerned, for their families and themselves, that our intelligence isn't as good as it should be.”

Just because he apologized didn't mean the pugnacious O'Reilly enjoyed it.

“I just said it,” he told Gibson. “What do you want me to do? Go over and kiss the camera?”