Free Republic

Capitol Hill-AP -- Some of the toughest criticism yet from Congress on the war in Iraq. Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia says the Bush administration lured the American people into launching an illegal, unprovoked attack on another nation in violation of international law and under false premises. The Senate's most senior member says the administration manipulated the events of nine-eleven to switch public focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. He points out that it was bin Laden who masterminded the terror attacks, not Saddam. Byrd says the administration's claim that war was necessary because the Iraqis...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) - A second-floor deck collapsed at a house where Marshall University students were celebrating the end of the school year Friday night, injuring more than a dozen people, authorities said. As many as 15 people were standing on the 10-by-15-foot deck that fell at 10:15 p.m., said Amanda Baisden, who lived at the home. "I was in the parking lot talking to a friend and I heard a big crack. I looked up and saw my best friend's arm flailing, and everything fell," Baisden said. Thirteen people were taken to two area hospitals, nursing supervisors said. None...

Filed at 5:36 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Questioning the motives of a ``desk-bound president who assumes the garb of a warrior,'' Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd on Tuesday reproached President Bush for flying onto an aircraft carrier last week to declare an end of major fighting in Iraq. ``I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw,'' Byrd said on the Senate floor. Byrd, 85, of West Virginia, is the Senate's most senior member and was one of the most outspoken critics...