Election May Turn on Report
WASHINGTON — The costs and benefits of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq loom ever larger as a potential tipping point in the 2004 presidential election after the release of a definitive CIA study this week concluding that Saddam Hussein possessed neither weapons of mass destruction nor active programs to produce them.
Though public support for the war hasn't been hurt much by earlier studies that found Iraq lacked such illicit weapons, the exhaustive new report from the CIA's Iraq Survey Group could prove considerably more damaging to Bush.
The study comes as violence continues to plague Iraq. The situation exposes Bush to a potentially dangerous squeeze: mounting losses on the ground combined with mounting challenges to his original justification for the war.
"If the benefits seem smaller and the costs seem higher, that makes the value of [going to war] lower," said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
The stinging report also arrived as Bush, on the eve of today's second presidential debate, unveiled an aggressive new speech intended to shift the campaign focus from his record toward the policies and character of his rival, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.
The report from Iraq Survey Group head Charles A. Duelfer -- which flatly contradicts many of the statements about Iraq's weapon capabilities from senior administration officials before the war -- offers Kerry an opportunity to force the spotlight back onto Bush's decisions and credibility, as he did in last week's initial presidential debate.
"As the lead-up to the debate, it is not helpful," acknowledged one senior GOP strategist familiar with White House planning. "Part of the impact, frankly, will depend on how the president answers [the questions] in the debate."
The impact may also turn on how effectively Kerry can resolve doubts about his own approach to Iraq and use the report to take the offensive against Bush.
The report echoes several other official studies in concluding that Hussein's regime did not possess stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. But it goes beyond the earlier examinations in its broad conclusion that Iraq also lacked active programs to acquire such weapons.
Contradicting repeated statements by Vice President Dick Cheney, the study found that Iraq ended its "nuclear program in 1991 following the [Persian] Gulf war," and that there was "no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program."
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