Cheney blasts criticism on Iraq

BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday said his Democratic rivals have been ''trying to rewrite history for their own political purposes" through their criticism of the Bush administration's decision to wage war based on flawed intelligence.

Senators John F. Kerry and John Edwards, the presumed Democratic presidential ticket, reviewed the same reports on Iraq that were given to President Bush and supported the decision to go to war, Cheney said.

''Now it seems they've both developed a convenient case of campaign amnesia," Cheney said during a fund-raiser in Bethlehem, one stop on a daylong campaign swing through Pennsylvania. ''If the president was right, and he was, then they are simply trying to rewrite history for their own political purposes."

A Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that the CIA provided unfounded assessments of the threat posed by Iraq with weapons of mass destruction.

Responding directly to Cheney's criticism, Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton said Bush and Cheney ''are the ones with amnesia. It's as if they've forgotten that their go-it-alone foreign policy has made America bear the overwhelming share of casualties and costs in Iraq."

In Boston, Kerry said he and Edwards were proud that they opposed the $87 billion aid package for Afghanistan and Iraq ''when we knew the policy had to be changed."

''We had to get it right," Kerry said. ''We needed other countries involved. We needed to reach out to our allies. We needed to put other boots on the ground. The job of the president is to have the maximum ability for success and the minimum risk and cost to the American people."

That comment led Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, to accuse Kerry of being reckless.

''John Kerry's reckless claim to be 'proud' of opposing funds to support the troops is in direct contradiction to his own earlier statement that such a vote would be 'irresponsible,' " Schmidt said in a statement.

''He voted to send forces into harm's way and then wrongly voted against critical funding for American troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Kerry and Edwards called the CIA's work slipshod but declined to answer a hypothetical question of whether they would have voted against the congressional resolution authorizing force in Iraq based on what they know now. They made the comment in an interview with The New York Times.

The $500-per-plate breakfast that Cheney attended yesterday in Bethlehem raised about $200,000 for the congressional campaign of Charles W. Dent. Cheney attended a similar event for attorney Scott Paterno, son of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, later yesterday in Harrisburg, raising an additional $100,000, Paterno's campaign manager said.