"When Biden-Lugar went down, unlike other candidates for president, Howard Dean said, 'I don't think we should vote for what's on the table,' " Daalder said.
"There is no inconsistency. No one has ever accused Howard Dean of being in favor of the war."
Thomas Mann, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institute, agreed that Biden-Lugar could have dampened the momentum for war and ultimately allowed time for a diplomatic solution.
"If they had hung to that proposal, war might well have been averted," Mann said. "On the other hand, there was no guarantee of it."
Although Dean's challengers have pounced on the inconsistency between his opposition to the war and his support for the Biden-Lugar proposal, some experts said it was unlikely that argument would shake the image many voters have of Dean.
"He's been such an eloquent speaker on the antiwar position that whatever he's said, that is what he is stamped with," said John Hulsman, a senior foreign policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
That sentiment was echoed by Nancy Hull, an attorney from Overland Park, Kan., who drove to Winterset, Iowa, last week to hear Dean speak.
Dean, she said, was the only one among the major Democratic candidates who stood his ground against a war she believes is misguided.
"He spotted it before any of the others," Hull said, "and that's what matters."
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Times researcher Vicki Gallay contributed to this report.
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(Begin Text of Infobox)
Dean's comments on the war in Iraq
On whether Saddam Hussein was a danger to the U.S.:
* "There's no question Saddam is a threat to the U.S. and our allies. The question is, is he an immediate threat? The president has not yet made the case for that." -- "Face the Nation," Sept. 29, 2002
* "Is the security of the United States affected by what's going on in Iraq today? ... I don't believe it is." -- "Meet the Press," March 9, 2003
* "Now we're stuck there, because there was no serious threat to the United States from Saddam Hussein, but there is a threat from an Iraq with Al Qaeda in it or with a fundamentalist Shiite regime." -- debate, Durham, N.H., Dec. 9, 2003
* "I never said Saddam was a danger to the United States, ever. Saddam was a regional danger." -- news conference, Concord, N.H., Dec. 10, 2003
* "The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer." -- foreign policy speech, Los Angeles, Dec. 14, 2003
