 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | November 2005 
Bush to Swing Back at Democrats
 Reuters
| | U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes guests to a dinner to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) at the White House November 10, 2005. (Reuters/Mike Theiler) |
Washington - U.S. President George W. Bush will use a Veterans Day speech on Friday to fight back against Democratic charges that the White House misused intelligence to gain support for the Iraq war, administration officials said.
"The president is going to directly take on the false attacks that Democratic leaders have been making," a senior administration official told Reuters.
Democrats in recent weeks have been accusing the White House of manipulating intelligence on Iraq and leaking classified information to discredit critics of the war.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted last month for obstructing justice, perjury and lying after a two-year investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Opinion polls show Bush's approval ratings sinking as the public becomes increasingly wary of the Iraq war.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on Thursday Democrats were insisting that Americans "get the truth about why the White House cherry-picked and leaked intelligence to sell the war in Iraq."
He added: "The president may think this matter can be swept under the rug or pardoned away, but Democrats know America can do better."
Bush was expected to fight back in a speech on the U.S. war against terrorism at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania that will also pay tribute to military veterans.
The Bush administration's main justification for the Iraq war was that it posed a threat because it had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but none have been found.
Administration officials have acknowledged the intelligence on Iraqi weapons was faulty, but have said Democrats, Republicans and foreign intelligence agencies had believed Baghdad had deadly weapons before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
"I point out that some of the critics today believed, themselves, in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq," said Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, on Thursday.
"For those critics to ignore their own past statements, exposes the hollowness of their current attacks," he said. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us