Fleischer says Bush changed after WMDs not found

Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, is the latest Bush administration official to speak out on the Iraq war, issuing an explanation and defense if not an apology.

Last year, Fleischer headed a group that launched an ad and grassroots blitz backing President Bush's strategy in Iraq. He also disputed his former deputy Scott McClellan's claims in a book about White House propaganda on the war.

But in an interview airing Saturday night on CNN, Fleischer sounds more chastened -- and says that his boss changed in that way as well after weapons of mass destruction -- the key justification for the war -- were not found in Iraq.

"If he had been right and we had found the stockpiles, as bad as the war turned out to be, much worse than we all thought it would be, I think most Americans would have said, 'Well, I don't like going to war but thank God we stopped Saddam from using them,' " Fleischer says on "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News," according to excerpts released today by CNN. "People say George Bush is a liar. No, he was telling what he was told by our CIA. Saddam was a liar.”

(To watch the video, click here.)

“I think that as his administration went on he became unpopular, he became increasingly chastened," Fleischer continued. "He became increasingly less, in his rhetoric, where he used to talk about 'wanted dead or alive' tough guy talk, he started toning that down and out substantially. It was too late by then and it was because of the facts on the ground not because of the rhetoric he was using."

Fleischer also offered some advice for President Obama, but counsel that sounds like what got his former boss in trouble.

"The most important thing in public life is to stand by your principles and act on them. This is what attracts people to you. Because you might be right, you might be wrong. Nobody is smart enough to really know. But if people think you are sincere, it comes from your heart people will back you up. That's why George Bush won in 2004."