Kerry and Edwards criticize Bush administration for misleading the nation

RALEIGH, N.C. --John F. Kerry and John Edwards yesterday accused the Bush administration of misleading the nation and manipulating intelligence analysts to win support for the invasion of Iraq, though both senators stood by their votes authorizing the war.

Kerry has for months expressed increasing skepticism about the Iraq war, but his newly chosen running mate has been relatively quiet on the topic. Back in October of 2002, Edwards was among the most hawkish of the Democrats in Congress, even co-sponsoring the Iraqi war resolution in the US Senate.

But yesterday, during an interview on their campaign plane in which the candidates also discussed the possibility of financing their campaign outside the public funding system, Edwards said Vice President Dick Cheney likely pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to skew its work in support of the war.

"We know that Dick Cheney spent significant amounts of time at the CIA. We know that the administration was aware, because all of us were becoming increasingly aware, of the problems within the intelligence community," hesaid.

Kerry said Bush personally misled him into casting his vote supporting the war by indicating that the administration would exhaust diplomatic options before using force. In fact, Kerry said several Middle Eastern leaders, including the Saudis, told him the Bush administration was committed to war more than a year before the actual invasion. But he choseto set aside his concerns after receiving assurances from President Bush.

"The president went back on his word," said Kerry. "I take that personally." He added: "Evidence is mounting significantly that they made a decision then framed an argument to support it. I think there are very serious questions about that that remain to be answered."

Nonetheless, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his choice for vice president defended their vote in favor of the war, saying that they were guided by the evidence laid before them at the time. "I'm not second-guessing my vote one iota," said Kerry. "The vote was the right vote at that moment at that moment in time, and we don't deal

with hypotheticals. We deal with the realities."

Polls show the Iraq war as a dominant issue of the campaign, with some recent surveys finding a majority of Americans now view the war as a mistake. Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Edwards continues to serve on, released a scathing report detailing voluminous intelligence failures in the lead-up to the war.

The war presents Kerry and Edwards with a delicate political dilemma. Both men supported it - Edwards vigorously. But with evidence mounting that the war was based on false premises, the Democratic base, crucial to their fortunes in the presidential election, is increasingly angry about the conflict.

Edwards said that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he serves on, was in no position to question the case for war, despite the fact that the committee's investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks was turning up problems. "After Sept. 11, we were in the process on the committee of finding out why Sept. 11 happened, why the failures occurred, all the things that we were obligated to do," Edwards said. "We're an oversight committee ... our

responsibility is oversight. It's the responsibility of the president of the United States to make sure that we lead."

Kerry nodded his assent to Edwards's comments, adding that he has become convinced the invasion was based on flawed intelligence, particularly tips from Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi, longtime head of an Iraqi group with ties to conservative members of the Bush administration.

"If someone had told me it was Mr. Chalabi and his crowd, I would have discounted by exponential factors what I was hearing and had a very different set of reactions," said Kerry. "I believe that the evidence is mounting that this administration made a decision to go to war and then fashioned a support structure for that decision."

Kerry described a trip he made to the Middle East in January 2002, when he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and top members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family and was told they believed the Bush administration had already decided on a course for war.

"They said to me that it was their strong belief that the administration was very clear that they wanted to go do this. They didn't have a specifictiming," said Kerry.

But after Kerry returned to the US, the Bush administration, despite its initial belligerent position, sent him signals that it would exhaust diplomacy first.

"I was convinced at that point in time, that while Cheney and company wanted to go in, the president had backed off and made a new decision," he said, adding that signals also came from prominent republicans like Secretary of State Colin Powell, former secretary of state James Baker, former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, and even former President George H.W. Bush. The conditions were established for comprehensive diplomacy, said Kerry.

When a president sets "those kinds of conditions and sets them personally, as a condition of a senator's vote, as that senator, I take that personally," said Kerry, expressing dismay that Bush subsequently invaded Iraq far quicker than Kerry expected.

Asked if Bush lied to him, Kerry said, "Look, those are all the words of politics. The bottom line is that the president abused the authority that we gave him. The president went back on his word. You use the words you want."

Separately, Kerry conceded his campaign is assessing whether it should skip federal financing for the general election - which would be limited to $75 million - and instead try to raise as much money as it can on its own.

Following the example set by Bush in 2000 and fellow Democrat Howard Dean this year, Kerry passed up $45 million in federal funds for his primary campaign. While campaign spokesmen have in recent weeks ruled out the possibility, saying that it would cost valuable time and resources to raise money outside the federal funding system, some supporters are now urging him to do the same thing for the general election.

Kerry has been raising about $30 million a month, and under the federal system he will be barred from raising any more private funds once he is formally nominated on July 29. That gives Bush a five-week spending advantage over him, because he could continue to spend the more than $180 million he has raised for his primary campaign, while preserving his $75 million general-election kitty, until he is formally nominated on Sept. 2.

"There are some people who have argued to our campaign that this should be done. I have not had time to sit down and evaluate it or look at it. I have no intentions. Right now my intention is to continue and do public financing," he said.

Similarly, Kerry would not rule out repaying himself a $6.3 million loan he made to his campaign in December when it faced a cash crush. The campaign has been making the monthly interest payments on the loan to the bank from which Kerry borrowed, but under federal law, he has to decide by the Democratic National Convention - which begins in two weeks - whether he will have his campaign re-pay him the money. Otherwise, he will be

personally liable for the bank's repayment.

"I don't know where we are in our cash flow or anything, but I'd sure like to," Kerry said with a smile as Edwards chuckled by his side.

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Raja Mishra can be

reached at rmishra@globe.com.