1 Nye, Joseph S., The Paradox of American Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 106Google Scholar .

2 Ibid., p. 67.

3 See Finel, Bernard I. and Lord, Kristin M. (eds), Power and Conflict in the Age of Transparency (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)Google Scholar .

4 Melissen, Jan, ‘The New Public Diplomacy: Between Theory and Practice’, in Melissen, J. (ed.), The New Public Diplomacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

5 Hocking, Brian, ‘Rethinking the “New” Public Diplomacy’, in Melissen, Jan (ed.), The New Public Diplomacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 39Google Scholar . It would appear that democracies, in particular, are disadvantaged in this game, given the transparency that a free press and a culture of openness generate, but it is precisely these qualities that also lend credibility to the commitments and communications of democracies. See Ritter, Jeffrey M., ‘Know Thine Enemy: Information and Democratic Foreign Policy’, in Finel, and Lord, , Power and Conflict, pp. 100–102Google Scholar .

6 Rosenau, James N., ‘Diplomacy, Proof, and Authority in the Information Age’, in Finel, and Lord, , Power and Conflict, p. 328Google Scholar .

7 Rosenau, James N., Turbulence in World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar .

8 The widespread concern of social actors with credibility is usually attributed to the demands of persuasion (or, in bargaining, compliance), but symbolic interactionism, which underlies the theoretical section of this article, has also drawn attention to processes of identity and role validation. For the best statement of this argument, see McCall, George J. and Simmons, J. L., Identities and Interactions, rev. ed., (New York: The Free Press, 1978)Google Scholar . Each perspective has a different focus, but the two are in many ways complementary.

9 Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), p. 251Google Scholar . See also, Barnett, Michael N., Dialogues in Arab Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)Google Scholar ; Schimmelfennig, Frank, ‘The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the EU’, International Organization, 55:1 (2001), pp. 47–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Johnston, Alastair I., ‘Treating International Institutions as Social Environments’, International Studies Quarterly, 45 (2001), pp. 487–515CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Krebs, Ronald R. and Jackson, Patrick T., ‘Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric’, European Journal of International Relations, 13:1 (2007), pp. 35–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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11 See Wetherell, Margaret, ‘Themes in Discourse Research: The Case of Diana’, in Wetherell, Margaret, Taylor, Stephanie, and J. Yates, Simeon (eds), Discourse Theory and Practice (London: Sage, 2001)Google Scholar .

12 The advocacy side of public diplomacy is concerned with using political messages and ‘fast media’ to convey information designed ‘to influence foreign attitudes in ways favorable to the image and policies of the nation’. See Deibel, Terry L. and Roberts, Walter R., Culture and Information: Two Foreign Policy Functions (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1976), p. 12Google Scholar ; see also Malone, Gifford D., Political Advocacy and Cultural Communication: Organizing the Nation's Public Dplomacy (Boston: University Press of America,1988), pp. 3–4Google Scholar , and Mor, Ben D., ‘The Rhetoric of Public Diplomacy and Propaganda Wars: A View from Self-Presentation Theory’, European Journal of Political Research, 46:5 (2007), pp. 661–683CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and ‘Accounts and Impression Management in Public Diplomacy: Israeli Justification of Force during the 2006 Lebanon War’, Global Change, Peace and Security, 21:2 (2009), pp. 219–239CrossRefGoogle Scholar . For an expansive conception of public diplomacy that also encompasses the activities of social movements and NGOs, see Gass and Seiter, ‘Credibility’, p. 155.

13 Additional dimensions are critically assessed in McCroskey, James C. and Young, Thomas J., ‘Ethos and Credibility: The Construct and Its Measurement after Three Decades’, Central States Speech Journal, 32 (1981), pp. 24–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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15 See Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., and Kelley, H. H., Communication and Persuasion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953)Google Scholar .

16 As with the concept of power, process and outcome can be easily confounded. Epstein, discussing scientific credibility in his study of AIDS research, writes this: ‘… credibility describes the capacity of claims-makers to enrol supporters behind their arguments, legitimate those arguments as authoritative knowledge, and present themselves as the sort of people who can voice the truth’. See Epstein, Steven, Impure Science:AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)Google Scholar .

17 Schelling, Thomas C., Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966)Google Scholar , and The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960)Google Scholar .

18 See Morrow, James D., ‘The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Negotiation in International Politics’, in Lake, David A. and Powell, Robert (eds), Strategic Choice and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 77–114Google Scholar ; Fearon, James D., ‘Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes’, American Political Science Review, 88 (1994), pp. 577–592CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Dixit, Avinash and Skeath, Susan, Games of Strategy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), chap. 9Google Scholar .

19 The two contexts of bargaining and debate are nevertheless closely linked. Not only is Schelling's (1960, p. 5) generic conception of bargaining broad enough to subsume debates, but at the level of actual grand strategy, hard power and soft power affect each other. See Schelling, , The strategy of Conflict, p. 5Google Scholar ; Nye, Joseph S., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), pp. 25–30Google Scholar ; Luttwak, Edward, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar ; Mor, Ben D., ‘Public Diplomacy in Grand Strategy’, Foreign Policy Analysis, 2:2 (2006), pp. 157–176CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Rapoport, Anatol, Fights, Games, and Debates (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1960)Google Scholar .

20 Walton, Douglas N., Informal Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 4–5Google Scholar .

21 See also Tindale, Christopher W., Acts of Arguing (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 69Google Scholar . In Crawford's discussion of political argument, ‘debate’ is not distinguished because the focus is on the common element of persuasive intent, whether the target is the other arguer or an audience. See Crawford, Neta C., Argument and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 29–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

22 Elster, Jon, ‘Strategic Uses of Argument’, in Arrow, K., Mnookin, R. H., Ross, L., Tversky, A., and Wilson, R. (eds), Barriers to Conflict Resolution (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995), pp. 236–257Google Scholar , emphasis in original. See also Müller, Harald, ‘Arguing, Bargaining, and All That: Communicative Action, Rationalist Theory and the Logic of Appropriateness in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations, 10:3 (2004), p. 397CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Walton (Informal Logic, p. 8) compares the negotiation dialogue – a form of bargaining – with the persuasion dialogue and argues that ‘[t]he concessions in bargaining are not commitments in the same sense as they are in persuasive dialogue, but trade-offs that can be sacrificed for gains elsewhere … the objective is always self-interest in “making a good deal”’.

23 Cunningham, Stanley B., The Idea of Propaganda (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002), p. 137Google Scholar .

24 Aristotle, , On Rhetoric, trans. George A. Kennedy, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 1356a, pp. 2–5Google Scholar .

25 Perelman, Chaim and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie, The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), p. 319Google Scholar .

26 Tindale, , Acts of Arguing, p. 23Google Scholar .

27 Perelman, Chaim, The Realm of Rhetoric (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 9Google Scholar .

28 Ibid., p. 3.

29 Ibid., p. 2, emphasis in original.

30 See Tindale, , Acts of Arguing, pp. 85–86Google Scholar .

31 Kunczik, Michael, Images of Nations and International Public Relations (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), p. 111Google Scholar .

32 Bogart, Leo, Premises for Propaganda (New York: The Free Press, 1976), p. 131Google Scholar .

33 Ibid., p. 132.

34 Tedeschi, James T. and Riess, Marc, ‘Identities, the Phenomenal Self, and Laboratory Research’, in Tedeschi, J. T. (ed.), Impression Management Theory and Social Psychological Research (New York: Academic Press, 1981), p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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36 The two explanations can be seen as complementary if an actor first seeks to construct a certain identity for social power reasons, then is forced to protect it if it is challenged by another actor or an audience.

37 Tedeschi and Riess, ‘Identities’, pp. 5–10. A ‘predicament of image enhancement’, on the other hand, occurs when due credit for positive consequences is under threat of denial.

38 Schlenker, Barry R., Impression Management: The Self-Concept, Social Identity, and Interpersonal Relations (Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1980), p. 131Google Scholar .

39 Scott, Marvin B. and Lyman, Stanford M., ‘Accounts’, American Sociological Review, 33:1 (1968), p. 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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42 Scott and Lyman, ‘Accounts’, p. 46.

43 Benoit, William L., Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration Strategies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 5Google Scholar .

44 Schlenker, , Impression Management, p. 136Google Scholar , emphasis added.

45 Ibid.

46 See also Edwards, Derek and Potter, Jonathan, Discursive Psychology (London: Sage Publications, 1992)Google Scholar .

47 Credibility is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for persuasion. It is not a necessary condition because, as Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson note in their discussion of the effectiveness of attractive communicators in advertising, ‘we hold our beliefs for other reasons in addition to our desire to be correct and to size up the world accurately. We hold our beliefs and attitudes in order to define and make sense of our selves’. See their Age of Propaganda, rev.ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001), p. 131Google Scholar , emphasis in original. Credibility is not a sufficient condition, because it can be overridden by other factors, such as resistance due to incompatible values or identities. However, other things being equal, source credibility is the foremost factor among the source characteristics that are found to affect persuasiveness. See Milburn, Michael A., Persuasion and Politics: The Social Psychology of Public Opinion (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1991), p. 107Google Scholar ; and Pornpitakpan, ‘the Persuasiveness of Source Credibility’.

48 Watson, Tony J., ‘Rhetoric Discourse and Argument in Organizational Sense Making: A Reflexive Tale’, Organization Studies, 16:5 (1995), p. 806CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

49 The table draws on Schutz, Astrid, ‘Assertive, Offensive, Protective, and Defensive Styles of Self-Presentation: A Taxonomy’, The Journal of Psychology, 132:6 (1998), pp. 611–628CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; McGraw, Kathleen M., ‘Managing Blame: An Experimental Test of the Effects of Political Accounts’, American Political Science Review, 85:4 (1991), pp. 1133–1157CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Schlenker, Impression Management. As suggested by Benoit, a rhetorical strategy is ‘an abstract or general concept that represents a goal or an effect sought by discourse’. Tactics are the actual means by which strategies are pursued or operationalised. See Benoit, , Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies, p. 80Google Scholar .

50 Tedeschi and Riess, ‘Identities’, p. 6.

51 In McGraw's accounts scheme (see ‘Managing Blame’, which deals with explanatory tactics to which public officials resort), reframing of outcomes is a form of justification. Because reframing can operate on its own or in conjunction with excuses or justification, I prefer to treat it as a separate category.

52 The actor may also partially or fully accept responsibility and apologise for an action or outcome for which it is blamed (this is variously called regret, concessions, apologies, or remediation). Although this is also a remedial tactic that is applied in a predicament of image protection, it does not have the quality of a proffered explanation that defines an account.

53 In the empirical section, I assume that these tactics can be employed by any actor who imposes blame, not just the defender. Thus, in the Second Lebanon War, human rights organisations used these tactics to impose blame on Israel, whereas the latter, in the role of the defender, applied blame imposition primarily to its opponent ‘on the ground’, Hizbullah.

54 Schlenker, , Impression Management, p. 151Google Scholar .

55 Scott and Lyman, ‘Accounts’, p. 54, emphasis in original.

56 Bennett, W. Lance, ‘The Paradox of Public Discourse: A Framework for the Analysis of Political Accounts’, The Journal of Politics, 42:3 (1980), p. 806CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

57 Mills, C. Wright, ‘Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive’, American Sociological Review, 5:6 (1940), p. 910CrossRefGoogle Scholar , emphasis in original. According to Mills, we learn in socialisation not only the norms and rules that govern various situations, but also the vocabulary of motives that are appropriate to them. This vocabulary is the socially acceptable way of justifying action. However, if we look for the ‘deeper, real motives’ of the actor, all we come up with are ‘other lingual forms. The “Real Attitude or Motive” is not something different in kind from the verbalization of the “opinion″’ (ibid., p. 909).

58 Bennett, ‘the Paradox of Public Discourse’.

59 See Mor, ‘Accounts and Impression Management’.

60 This is a form of what game theorists call ‘separation of types’. See Morrow, ‘the Strategic Setting of Choices’, p. 87.

61 Entman, Robert M., Projections of Power (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 5Google Scholar , emphasis deleted.

62 See fn. 44.

63 Barnett, , Dialogues in Arab Politics, p. 39Google Scholar . For the concept of ‘the definition of the situation’ in symbolic interactionism, see Perinbanayagam, R. S., ‘The Definition of the Situation: An Analysis of the Ethnomethodological and Dramaturgical View’, The Sociological Quarterly, 15 (1974), pp. 521–541CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

64 Motivation, as a determinant of future actions, is of course a matter of credibility in bargaining as well, which is where the logic of costly signalling, such as audience costs, comes into play. See Fearon, ‘Domestic Political Audiences’. In blame reduction strategies, the action has already occurred, and its post-hoc evaluation depends on an audience's perception of the actor's motivations. In both cases, the issue arises because motivations are not directly observable and must be inferred (see the ‘“other minds” problem’ in Hollis, Martin and Smith, Steve, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), chap. 8Google Scholar .

65 Bennett, ‘the Paradox of Public Discourse’, p. 800.

66 This example also illustrates how in real-world account tactics are related in intricate ways. Thus, to invoke self-defence as a norm (justification) requires the actor also to argue that its actions were subjectively understood as such, rather than as offensive, at the time (‘we did not intend X’ in excuses) and that the actual circumstances of the event (reframing) made this understanding reasonable. Such an account may simultaneously also involve tactics of blame imposition.

67 Sarma, Kiran, ‘Defensive Propaganda and IRA Political Control in Republican Communities’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30 (2007), pp. 1073–1094CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

68 Uimonen, Paula, ‘Mediated management of meaning: on-line nation building in Malaysia’, Global Networks, 3:3 (2003), pp. 299–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

69 See Potter, Jonathan and Wetherell, Margaret, Discourse and Social Psychology (London: Sage Publications, 1987), pp. 39–43, 76–77Google Scholar .

70 Collett, Peter, ‘The Rules of Conduct’, in Collett, P. (ed.), Social Rules and Social Behavior (Towota, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977), pp. 1–27Google Scholar .

71 Semin, Gun R. and Manstead, Antony S. R., The Accountability of Conduct (London: Academic Press, 1983), p. 175Google Scholar , emphasis added.

72 Neufeld, Mark, ‘Interpretation and the “Science” of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 19:1 (1993), p. 44CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

73 Gross, Michael L., Moral Dilemmas of Modern War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar .

74 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘terror from Lebanon’, available at: {http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terrorism+from+Lebanon-+Hizbullah} accessed 14 January 2007.

75 Myre, Greg, ‘Israel Fights Back Against War Critics’, New York Times (5 December 2006)Google Scholar , available at: {http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/04/news/israel.php} accessed 17 February 2007.

76 ‘Qana’ had a special significance in that context, since it was also the site of an 18 April 1996 incident in which an Israeli artillery shell, fired during ‘Operation Grapes of Wrath’ against Hizbullah, hit a UN compound near Qana and killed 106 Lebanese civilians of the 800 who took shelter there.

77 ‘Israel/Lebanon: Qana Death Toll at 28’, Human Rights Watch, Beirut (2 August 2006)Google Scholar , available at: {http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13899.htm} accessed 24 November 2009.

78 Ha'aretz (31 July 2006).

79 Ibid.

80 Mor, ‘Accounts and Impression Management’.

81 For a highly critical analysis of humanitarian NGOs, especially as concerns Israel, see Steinberg, Gerald M., ‘Soft Power Play Hardball: NGOs Wage War Against Israel’, Israel Affairs, 12:4 (2006), pp. 748–768CrossRefGoogle Scholar . My concern in this article, however, is not with evaluating the credibility of NGOs but rather with how they promote it in their rhetoric.

82 Hizbullah's rhetoric on Qana is not addressed in this article, although the organisation's media, especially Al Manar, was active in propagating graphic pictures from the site of the bombing. See Kalb, Marvin and Saivetz, Carol, ‘The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetric Conflict’, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 12:3 (2007), pp. 43–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar . The focus on the Israel-NGO interaction can be justified by the importance to Israel of Western public opinion, whose exposure to the raw materials provided by Hizbullah was mediated by the Western media and the humanitarian organisations. Credibility in the Israel-Hizbullah case was related more to psychological warfare and to domestic (and Arab) audiences.

83 See {http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA}. The site provides (under the title ‘terror from Lebanon’) a large collection of various documents related to the war, such as official government and military communiqués, policy statements, press conferences, media interviews, public addresses, etc.

84 See, respectively, {http://www.amnesty.org} and {http://www.hrw.org}.

85 Mor, ‘the Rhetoric of Public Diplomacy’, tested the predicaments framework for general themes of self-presentation in official texts, applying a coding protocol in a thematic content analysis.

86 Wood, Linda A. and Kroger, Rolf O., Doing Discourse Analysis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000), p. 8Google Scholar .

87 Hoffman, Gil, ‘Israel's delay in screening Kana footage causes PR disaster’, The Jerusalem Post (31 2006)Google Scholar .

88 ‘Israel Defense Forces press conference following the Kafr Qana incident’, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (30 July 2006).

89 Ibid.

90 Ibid.

91 ‘Excerpts from statement by Defense Minister Amir Peretz to the Knesset’, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (31 July 2006).

92 Hoffman, ‘Israel's delay’.

93 ‘Statement by Ambassador Dan Gillerman before the UN Security Council’, Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN (30 July 2006).

94 ‘Incident in Kafr Qana’, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (30 July 2006).

95 ‘Israel Defense Forces press conference following the Kafr Qana incident’, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (30 July 2006).

96 Ibid.

97 ‘Amnesty International Missions to Lebanon and Israel’, Amnesty International, News Service # 201 (2 August 2006)Google Scholar .

98 ‘Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians’, Human Rights Watch (3 August 2006)Google Scholar .

99 Ibid.

100 ‘Open letter to members of the UN Security Council on the situation in Lebanon/Israel’, Amnesty International, News Service #202 (2 August 2006)Google Scholar , emphasis added.

101 ‘Document – Israel: IDF inquiry into Qana a whitewash’, Amnesty International, News Service #202 (3 August 2006)Google Scholar .

102 ‘International Inquiry Needed into Israeli Air Strike’, Human Rights Watch (1 August 2006)Google Scholar .

103 Ibid.

104 ‘Israel Defense Forces press conference following the Kafr Qana incident’, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (30 July 2006).

105 ‘Open letter to members of the UN Security Council on the situation in Lebanon/Israel’, Amnesty International, News Service #202 (2 August 2006)Google Scholar .

106 ‘International Inquiry Needed into Israeli Air Strike’, Human Rights Watch (1 August 2006,)Google Scholar .

107 ‘Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians’, Human Rights Watch (3 August 2006)Google Scholar .

108 ‘Lebanon/Israel: 48 Hours not Enough as War Crimes Continue’, Amnesty International, News Service #199 (31 July 2006)Google Scholar .

109 ‘International Inquiry Needed into Israeli Air Strike’, Human Rights Watch (1 August 2006)Google Scholar .

110 ‘Document – Israel: IDF inquiry into Qana a whitewash’, Amnesty International, News Service #202 (3 August 2006)Google Scholar .

111 ‘Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians’, Human Rights Watch (3 August 2006)Google Scholar .

112 Hoffman, Gil, ‘Israel's delay in screening Kana footage causes PR disaster’, The Jerusalem Post (31 July 2006)Google Scholar .

113 ‘Statement by Ambassador Dan Gillerman before the UN Security Council’, Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN (30 July 2006)Google Scholar .

114 ‘International Inquiry Needed into Israeli Air Strike’, Human Rights Watch (1 August 2006)Google Scholar .

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116 Fierke, Karin M., Changing Games, Changing Strategies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), p. 19Google Scholar , emphasis in original.

117 Rosenau, , Turbulence in World Politics, p. 201Google Scholar .

118 Arnold, Carroll C., Introduction to The Realm of Rhetoric by Perelman, Chaim (Note Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. xiGoogle Scholar , emphasis in original.

119 For the text of Stevenson's address, see: {http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/adlaistevensonunitednationscuba.html} accessed 15 January 2009. Zorin's reply can be found at: {http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/zorin3.htm} accessed 15 January 2009.

120 For details on the KAL 007 incident, see: {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007#Revised_ICAO_report} accessed 15 January 2009.

121 Rosenau discusses this case and the KAL 007 incident as examples of ‘relations of proof’ in world politics. See Turbulence in World Politics, pp. 207–8.

122 Manheim, Jarol B., ‘Strategic Public Diplomacy: Managing Kuwait's Image During the Gulf Conflict’, in Bennett, W. L. and Paletz, D. L. (eds), Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy in the Gulf War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 131–148Google Scholar .

123 See {http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205–1.html} accessed 15 January 2009.

124 President Bush has subsequently admitted that ‘the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq’ {http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/02/2435282.htm} accessed 15 January 2009.