In an attempt to justify his vote in favor of the October 2002 Iraq war resolution, Sen. John Kerry found himself inadvertently defending President Bush on Monday, saying he backed the measure because he thought President Clinton hadn't used enough force against Iraq.
"All of a sudden in 1998, Saddam Hussein doesn’t cooperate, Bill Clinton pulls our [weapons] inspectors out so we could bomb for four or five days. Which we did," Kerry told a Keene, New Hampshire crowd.
But in quotes picked up by the New York Sun, Kerry then complained, "That’s it. End of story. Saddam Hussein is left alone. No inspectors go back in.”
When the Bush administration presented the same evidence President Clinton used to justify the 1998 attack, Kerry said he was compelled to authorize the use of force because he had tried and failed to persuade Clinton to do the same thing.
"So, George Bush brings a legitimate security issue before the Congress in 2002," the Democratic front-runner told the crowd. "Am I supposed to turn away and ignore what I said in 1998, what I thought Clinton should have done?"
In comments that further bolster the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq, Kerry reminded his audience that weapons inspectors had already uncovered - not just evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs - but tons of biological and chemical weapons themselves, along with a thriving nuclear program.
"From the moment that we kicked [Saddam] out of Kuwait in the early 1990s, all the way through 1998, we had an American team on the ground under Ambassador [Richard] Butler destroying weapons of mass destruction,” the Massachusetts Democrat explained.
"People are quick to forget that," Kerry added. "Very quick to forget that.”
"For 7 1 /2 years" he continued, "we destroyed weapons of mass destruction, folks, and you know what, we found he had more of them than we thought he had. And we found he was further down the road to the creation of nuclear weapons than we thought he was."
Apparently sensing he had gone too far in defending Bush, Kerry returned to the rhetoric of his standard stump speech, telling the audience that he voted, not in favor of a war, but in favor of a "process promised by the president.”
"If you think I would have gone to war the way George Bush did, don’t vote for me," he urged.
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