WASHINGTON, 7 March 2004 — Sen. Edward Kennedy has accused President Bush of distorting US intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, and charged the president of deliberate “manipulation of intelligence in making its case for war.”
Kennedy, the second longest serving member of the Senate, condemned what he called the Bush administration’s “misuse, distortion and misrepresentation” of intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and assertions of Saddam Hussein’s ties with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
“Nuclear weapons, mushroom clouds, unique and urgent threat, real and dangerous threat, grave threat — this was the administration’s rallying cry for war,” Kennedy on Friday told a large audience at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It was pure unadulterated fear-mongering based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam’s ability to provide nuclear weapons to Al-Qaeda justified immediate war.”
Kennedy’s attacks were the most detailed and caustic Democratic assaults on the Iraq war to date, and he promised tough questioning of CIA Director George Tenet on Tuesday, when the intelligence chief is scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Citing a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney in September 2002 claiming “with absolute certainty” that Hussein was “using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon,” Kennedy asked: “Where was the CIA director when the vice president was going nuclear about Saddam going nuclear?”
Some political observers have accused Tenet of backpedaling when, during a speech last month, Tenet said that prior to the war Saddam Hussein was several years away from acquiring a nuclear weapons. CIA analysts never said there was an imminent threat of Saddam Hussein using banned weapons or putting them in the hands of terrorists.
Kennedy said Tenet “clearly distanced himself from the administration’s statements about the urgency of the threat from Iraq,’ but he “stopped short” of saying the administration distorted the intelligence.
Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq last March 19, claiming authorization for military action from a resolution approved by the GOP-led Congress in 2002. Sen. Kennedy voted against it; but Democratic presidential contender Sen. John Kerry, who he actively supports, voted for it.
Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Friday that “our senior leaders are still in a deep state of denial” about the nation’s intelligence failures.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that she sees “no discernible signs from the vice president or president acknowledging the obvious flaws in our intelligence systems.”
