McClellan: Hadley admitted responsibility for false Iraq claims, said he would resign.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes today that in Scott McClellan’s new book, the former White House press secretary reveals that National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley once admitted that he was responsible for the false claims about Iraq’s WMD in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address:

McClellan recounts how Hadley confessed to his colleagues that he, and not CIA chief George Tenet, was to blame for Bush’s unfounded claim about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions in a State of the Union address. “I blew it,” McClellan quotes Hadley as saying. “I think the only solution is for me to resign.”

Hadley didn’t quit, and Tenet’s name was never fully cleared. Still, McClellan identified Hadley as an “honorable” and “selfless” man.