Kerry Slams Bush On WMD Report

Democratic Sen. John Kerry said Thursday that a new report finding Iraq had no stockpiles of banned weapons "provided definitive evidence as to why George Bush should not be re-elected president of the United States."

Kerry spoke the day after Charles Duelfer, the U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, reported that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated by the time of the U.S.-led invasion last year.

Faced with that evidence, Mr. Bush conceded Thursday that Saddam did not have the illegal weapons he had cited as the main argument for invading Iraq. But he maintained that the war was justified and that Saddam retained the "means and the intent" to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Kerry rejected the argument, saying that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction that the administration presented to Congress was why he and other lawmakers voted to give Mr. Bush the authority to go to war.

"My fellow Americans, you don't make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact," Kerry said. "Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq."

Kerry then looked into the camera and challenged Mr. Bush directly.

"Mr. President, the American people deserve more than spin about this war," Kerry said. "They deserve facts that represent reality, not carefully polished arguments and points that are simply calculated to align with a preconceived perception."

Kerry made the comments as he wrapped up a low-key stop in Colorado to prepare for Friday night's debate against Mr. Bush, their second encounter in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, a new Associated Press poll shows Kerry has taken a slim lead in the race for the White House, with the president's support tumbling on personal qualities, the war in Iraq and the commander in chief's bedrock campaign issue – national security.

Among 944 likely voters, the Kerry-Edwards ticket led Bush-Cheney 50 percent to 46 percent. The Oct. 4-6 survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Nearly three-fourths of likely voters who were surveyed said they had watched or listened to the first presidential debate last week. Some 39 percent said they came away with a more favorable view of Kerry, while just 8 percent felt better about Mr. Bush.

In his remarks Thursday, Kerry suggest that if Mr. Bush fails to recognize the severity of problems in Iraq, the situation could become as chaotic as the Middle East was in the early 1980s.

"If the president just does more of the same every day and it continues to deteriorate, I may be handed Lebanon, figuratively speaking," Kerry said at a brief news conference.

The Lebanese civil war, which lasted from 1975-1990, killed more than 150,000 people and devastated the capital of Beirut, once called the "Paris of the Middle East."

In 1983, suicide attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon killed 63 people, and the bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut six months later killed 241 servicemen. Dozens of Westerners were taken hostage during that period, and President Reagan ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from Lebanon a few months after the Marine bombing.

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt noted that Kerry talked for years about the threat of Saddam's weapons programs. He said Duelfer's report concluded that Saddam intended to reconstitute his weapons program.

"John Kerry today offered another example that proves he is a candidate with no principles beyond the political need of the moment," Schmidt said.

Kerry said he still believes that Saddam Hussein was a threat, but dozens of other countries have the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction or are home to al Qaeda operatives. "Did we invade Russia? Did we invade China?'' he said.

Kerry said the evidence of weapons of mass destruction was overblown and designed to "purposefully used to shift the focus from al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, to Iraq and Saddam Hussein."

Kerry has argued that the Iraq was a diversion from the overriding U.S. effort to respond to the Sept. 11 attacks and hunt down its mastermind bin Laden.