The easiest observation from President Bush’s opponents these days is that Republicans demanded President Clinton be investigated for lying about sex, so why shouldn’t an independent counsel investigate the current president for lying about the need for war.

No one should wish the zealotry that hounded Mr. Clinton on any of his successors. Instead, without waiting for congressional hearings, President Bush should offer an appraisal of the intelligence reports he received, how his administration responded to them and what errors have since been discovered that led to a misinterpretation of actual conditions in Iraq.

To some, this will seem hopelessly naive – the president, they will say, knowingly lied about the weapons of mass destruction and the threat to the United States and cynically used the shock of Sept. 11 to invent ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. He did this to own the Iraqi oil fields, assert U.S. hegemony, finish his father’s war, distract from the economy, etc. He won’t volunteer any information that would suggest he had misled the public.

However relieved defenders of human rights might be that Saddam Hussein has been chased from his palaces, questions about President Bush’s motivations will remain for at least as long as U.S. soldiers are being killed by snipers in Iraq. Even if the president had no interest in explaining to the nation his view of the controversial intelligence reports he conveyed before the war, events in Iraq pose a practical problem for him as the 2004 elections draw near. Short of captur-ing Saddam Hussein, the continuing deaths of U.S. solders, the cost of the occupation, the strained relations with the rest of the world will not wear well on the public over the next 15 months.

He would do better to call a press conference and describe why he insisted, “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised,” as he did just before ordering the invasion of Iraq. He could forget the blameless aluminum tubes, the embarrassing Niger tale about the enriched uranium and nuclear weapons entirely and focus instead on what evidence has been confirmed to suggest at least the possibility of a recent chemical or biological weapons program. Was there anything like a missile-delivery system that would have threatened the United States?

The links between Iraq and al-Qaida seem even less substantial, although the reason for making them are clear enough. The president would do well to use his press conference to update the public on where things stand with capturing Osama bin Laden, reducing al-Qaida’s influence in Afghanistan and reducing its threat worldwide.

Finally, he could describe his administration’s humanitarian effort in Iraq – something all sides agree is necessary and a reason some liberals supported the president’s decision to go to war. An explanation of his commitment to help rebuild Iraq’s hospitals and schools, its government and economy, all with the support of other nations, would soften the judgment on what the president and his administration said before the war began.