Posted on 06/13/2003 8:47:39 PM PDT by Pokey78
WASHINGTON, June 13 — The war in Iraq is once again dividing the Democratic Party, with Congressional leaders and presidential candidates struggling over how strongly to challenge President Bush about the failure so far to find biological or chemical weapons.
Many party leaders say they are hopeful that questions about the weapons can be turned into a powerful political issue. But others are concerned that it may backfire, given the strong public support for Mr. Bush's war policies, the public's apparent indifference to the absence of weapons and the prospect that such weapons could turn up any day.
Some Democrats asserted today that attacking Mr. Bush on the weapons question could undercut one of the president's greatest strengths going into next year's election, his success as commander in chief. Should no weapons be found, they said, Democrats could challenge Mr. Bush's credibility on issues beyond the Iraqi conflict.
One presidential candidate, Senator Bob Graham of Florida, went so far as to compare Mr. Bush and his fellow Republicans to Richard M. Nixon. After Republicans announced they would hold closed-door hearings on the weapons issue, Mr. Graham accused the administration of "another shameful and dangerous display of secrecy," and suggested it had manipulated intelligence "to sell the decision to go to war."
On Capitol Hill, Democrats who were largely silent during the war have begun to challenge Mr. Bush. Some, like Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, have suggested that administration officials may have embellished intelligence reports during the buildup to war in Iraq.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, said in an interview that "serious questions have been raised that need to be answered."
But other prominent Democrats, including such presidential contenders as Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts, John Edwards of North Carolina and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, have struck a far more cautious tone, with their aides warning that such attacks could end up hurting the Democratic Party, depending on how events play out.
Several polls have indicated that the public remains largely supportive of the war, and that people are not particularly concerned that the weapons that Mr. Bush said would be found have not yet been located.
Some Democrats who supported the war, notably Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, said they still thought it was likely that weapons would be found.
"The right tone is one of serious concerns but no allegations," said a senior adviser to one of the presidential candidates who, given the sensitivity of the issue, spoke on the condition that he and his candidate not be named. "I think we do ourselves a disservice to start screaming conspiracy. Let's give them the time to search.
Of Mr. Bush, the adviser said that "if we take a run on this guy and they find them, he'll come up at us stronger than ever."
In Congress, Republicans gave Democrats an opening this week by announcing that an inquiry into the administration's Iraqi intelligence-gathering would be conducted largely behind closed doors. Some Democratic lawmakers pushed for open hearings that would, in a Washington tradition, create headlines during the slow months of July and August.
"Questions have arisen about who knew what, when and why," said Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, who was an outspoken opponent of the war. "In order for us to have what we need to make decisions, it is important that these questions be aired as publicly as possible."
These developments illustrate the way the war in Iraq, even with the formal conflict declared to be largely over, continues to bedevil the Democratic Party. Democrats said that at least two of their presidential candidates, Mr. Graham and Dr. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who built his campaign on a platform of opposing the war, have a lot riding on whether the administration, as both men have suggested, manipulated intelligence about biological and chemical weapons in Iraq.
At first, Dr. Dean aggressively challenged Mr. Bush's credibility on the issue. But he has since held back as pressure on the administration has built in Congress. "Howard Dean said for a long time that the president didn't make the case for war in Iraq," said Steve McMahon, one of Dr. Dean's senior advisers. "Now the question is, was the case the president made based on facts or ideology?"
Some of Dr. Dean's supporters said he would be vindicated if no weapons were found. At the same time, Mr. Graham, who is the latest entry into the presidential race, has attacked Mr. Bush's credibility with a directness that has startled some rivals, who argued that Mr. Graham would be in political difficulty if weapons were uncovered.
Nonetheless, a number of Democrats, including an adviser to Mr. Graham, said they believed that the uncertainty surrounding the weapons could fundamentally damage Mr. Bush.
"The administration's efforts to rally public support for the war at the front end led to the expectation that at the back end we would find weapons of mass destruction pretty quickly," said Geoffrey Garin, Mr. Graham's pollster. "So to some extent the administration is being hoisted on its own petard."
But the risks for the Democrats are high. Mr. Bush has dismissed suggestions that he manipulated information, and Republicans were quick to try to paint Democrats as unpatriotic for raising such questions.
In announcing the closed-door hearings, Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused Democrats of using the war for political gain. And Senator Bill Frist, the Republican leader, said in an interview: "I think it's political posturing. Democrats are politicizing a very important issue."
Democrats, in keeping with tradition and fearing they would be labeled unpatriotic, refrained from criticizing the administration during the war. That has changed with most American forces out of harm's way.
Aides to several of the Democratic presidential candidates, as well as other Democrats, said the failure to find the weapons could provide opportunities to question Mr. Bush's integrity, which has been seen as one of his greatest strengths.
"There has been a frustration in the Democratic Party that this president doesn't seem to be held to the same standards that either his predecessor or his predecessor's vice president were held to," said Anita Dunn, a Democratic consultant.
In the months leading up to the war, administration officials said they had intelligence indicating that Iraq had ties to terrorism and had made efforts to develop biological and chemical weapons. This week Mr. Bush said he was "absolutely convinced" that proof would be found that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons programs, even as the Pentagon released a study suggesting that some intelligence analysts were uncertain about that.
Given the overwhelming public support of the war, even Democrats said it was hardly certain that opinions would turn against the administration if no weapons were found.
In March, before the invasion began, a joint survey by Democratic and Republican pollsters found that 41 percent of the public believed that the war would "mostly be a success" if Saddam Hussein were removed from office but no weapons were found. That sentiment has grown since Baghdad fell, in no small part because people believe the weapons will be found, said Jeremy Rosner, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey.
Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, said a majority of the public did not believe that the Bush administration had deliberately misled them. "There is really not a credibility issue at this point," Mr. Kohut said.
Dag...they are learning. They are like monkeys, zap them 30 times when they do the same thing and then and only then will they finally realize their mistakes.
Their circus could fundamentally damage our ability to fight an enemy who wants to kill us in our own homes. Have a number of Democrats given any thought to this?
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