'04 Democrats See Plus in Iraq Weapon Hunt
SAN FRANCISCO — As the search for weapons of mass destruction continues in Iraq, some Democratic presidential hopefuls believe the hunt has already turned up something of value: an issue to use against President Bush.
Opponents of the war say the failure to find any banned weapons undercuts the reason Bush gave for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein.
"The standard that we went to war on was that there were weapons of mass destruction which were able to be used against the neighbors of Iraq and, potentially, against the United States of America," Sen. Bob Graham of Florida said Wednesday.
"I don't believe that two mobile vans" -- the proof Bush cited last week -- "justifies a war to secure [Iraq's] neighbors or the United States," Graham told reporters at a campaign stop in San Francisco.
Even candidates who supported the war, and find themselves in a somewhat more awkward position, are raising questions about the administration's credibility and whether, wittingly or not, Bush misled Americans about the reason to go to war.
"If the intelligence community had a massive failure here, or if the administration has distorted the intelligence it was given, those would be legitimate issues," Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said Friday at a campaign stop in Iowa.
"I think people in this country are entitled to an explanation," Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina agreed Saturday. "Do we have intelligence information that is accurate? Was there a distortion of information?"
The failure to find any chemical or biological weapons has prompted some lawmakers to call for congressional hearings into whether U.S. intelligence broke down, or whether information was manipulated to rally public support for a war with Iraq.
Administration officials note that the search for banned weapons is still underway and express confidence they will eventually be found. "This was a weapons of mass destruction program that was built on concealment," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security advisor, said earlier this week on CNBC. "So of course it's going to take some time to put the full picture together."
Still, many Democrats aren't waiting to challenge the administration.
Graham, in particular, has questioned Bush's rationale for a war he believes diverted attention from the more important mission of dismantling the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
