WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats, responding to President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night, assailed the White House for leading the United States into a war against Iraq based on "unproven assertions" and pursuing a "go-it-alone foreign policy" that has left the U.S. with most of the casualties and cost of the military operation.
Sounding themes they hope will help their party take control of Congress and the White House in November, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said in their nationally televised joint response that the Bush administration had created a record budget deficit and shortchanged domestic programs, such as education, health care and homeland security, to give tax cuts to the wealthy, while failing to stem job losses.
While Bush defended his use of force in Iraq, declaring that it rid the country of a brutal dictator and made the world a safer place, Pelosi accused the president of embracing a "radical doctrine of preemptive war, unprecedented in our history."
"American troops are enduring almost all the casualties" -- more than 500 killed and thousands more wounded -- and bearing much of the cost -- "$120 billion and rising," Pelosi said.
Some other Democrats were harsher in their criticism of Bush's Iraq policy: Rep. Bob Filner of San Diego accused Bush of placing the U.S. troops in a "quagmire that was created by poor planning and arrogant diplomacy," and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts charged that the administration had "distorted, misrepresented and manipulated" the intelligence to make its case for war -- a reference to Democratic criticism that the White House exaggerated claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was pursuing an illicit program to develop weapons of mass destruction.
In his speech, Bush said that he had worked to build international support for the war and rebuilding. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who supported the war in Iraq, was infuriated by Bush's ticking off the names of countries supporting the U.S. invasion, contending that most had given little in either money or troops.
Daschle offered a glimpse of the legislative battles that lay ahead for Bush as he seeks to win congressional approval for measures he promoted in the State of the Union speech.
Daschle decried Bush's call to make permanent the tax cuts now due to expire in 2010 and his proposal to allow workers to divert some of their Social Security taxes into private investment accounts.
