Senate Report Triggers Presidential Election Debate about Iraq

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Senate Report Triggers Election Debate on Iraq

US PRESIDENT BUSH SPEAKS IN PENNSYLVANIA DURING CAMPAIGN BUS TOUR
(2004-07-09)

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate report on U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq heightened an election-year debate on Friday as Democrats accused the Bush White House of exaggerating evidence to justify war.

"It is one thing to have bad intelligence, it is quite another to mischaracterize that intelligence. Congress must investigate whether the intelligence on Iraq was misused or manipulated," said the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi of California.

President Bush admitted there were intelligence failures but said Saddam Hussein was a big enough threat in a post-Sept. 11 world to justify toppling regardless of whether stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction existed. "I chose to defend the country, and it's exactly what I would do again," he said on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania.

snip...

Mark Kitchens, a spokesman for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, said nothing in the Senate report absolved the White House of its "mishandling of the country's intelligence."

"The fact is that when it comes to national security, the buck stops at the White House, not anywhere else. It's disturbing that the White House continues to lay blame for intelligence failures solely at the steps of the intelligence community, yet takes no responsibility for its own failings, Kitchens said.

more at link: (repugs pissed at Rockefeller now...will Cheney say f*ck you Rockefeller??? LOL)
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wrvo/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=659335