WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday sought to tamp down what has become a bitter and personal fight in Washington over the Iraq war, offering praise for a senior House Democrat who had called for the full withdrawal of troops and saying that an "energetic debate" over the war was part of a healthy society.
But at the same time, Cheney offered fresh attacks on Democratic senators who had accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat of Iraq's weapons programs to build support for the invasion. He called those accusations "dishonest and reprehensible."
"American soldiers and Marines serving in Iraq go out every day into some of the most dangerous and unpredictable conditions. Meanwhile, back in the United States, a few politicians are suggesting these brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood," Cheney said in an address to a conservative think tank. "This is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety. It has no place anywhere in American politics, much less in the United States Senate."
Still, even while calling those accusations "not legitimate," Cheney's speech signaled a softer tone from the White House. It came as members of both parties sought to step back from the name-calling that erupted last week after Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who is respected in both parties for his leadership on military affairs, on Thursday dropped his support for the war and called for an immediate, phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The White House had initially attacked Murtha, issuing a statement that associated him with filmmaker Michael Moore and "the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."
But in his speech Monday before the American Enterprise Institute, Cheney called Murtha "a good man, a Marine, a patriot."
And Murtha, who last week had noted pointedly that Cheney used deferments to avoid service in Vietnam, amended his own comments, saying on CNN: "I said that heated, and I feel bad about that actually, because, you know, Dick Cheney -- he was in Congress for 10 years. He really has served this country. And he's been a public servant when he would have been making a lot more money outside."
Cheney, in arguing that "disagreement, argument and debate" over the war were welcome but that claims that Bush misled the nation were "not legitimate," appeared to be signaling that the White House wanted to quell some of the bitterness of the Iraq debate while aggressively responding to attacks on Bush's truthfulness. Public opinion surveys indicate the president's honesty has come under new skepticism.
