US Democrats Demand Probe of Prewar Intelligence

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, July 12, 2003

US Democrats Demand Probe of Prewar Intelligence

US Democratic presidential contenders demanded an investigation Friday into false intelligence used by President George W. Bush over Iraq's nuclear weapons to justify the Iraq war.

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US Democratic presidential contenders demanded an investigation Friday into false intelligence used by President George W. Bush over Iraq's nuclear weapons to justify the Iraq war.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Florida Senator Bob Graham, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and other White House rivals are becoming more critical of Bush's handling of the prewar intelligence as casualties of US troops in Iraq increased.

"Instead of engaging in bureaucratic finger pointing, he (the president) needs to be honest with the American people. To achieve that goal, we need a full and honest investigation into intelligence failures," Kerry, who voted in favor of going to war with Iraq last year, said in a statement.

Graham called for a broad, independent and public probe into the matter. "Day after day, the Bush administration fails to confess the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the use of intelligence leading us to war with Iraq," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Dean said current investigation underway in Congress have become too policized to be effective. "We need a full-scale ... bipartisan investigation outside of Congress," he said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" show. "We need to find out what the president knew and when he knew it."

Lieberman also said in a statement that the controversy "breaks the basic bond of trust we must have with our leaders in times of war and terrorism."

Expressing his strong concern over reports that the Bush administration had ignored the Central Intelligence Agency's objection to including the uranium claim in the State of the Union address, he said the "troubling reports" need "full and thorough investigation."

Earlier this week, the White House acknowledged that Bush's accusation in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to acquire uranium from Africa was incorrect.

President Bush, who is visiting Africa, argued Friday that the intelligence agencies had cleared his State of the Union address.

"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by intelligence services. It was a speech that detailed to the American people the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime," Bush said in Uganda.

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