Gephardt Defends Backing Iraq War

Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt on Tuesday defended his central role in rounding up congressional support for the war in Iraq, tackling the issue head-on less than a week before the Iowa caucuses.

As House minority leader, the Missouri congressman broke with many in his party in the fall of 2002 to help write and pass the resolution that authorized President Bush to use force against Iraq.

He appeared in the Rose Garden with Bush to promote the measure, which was also supported by three other Democrats running for president -- Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

“I don’t apologize for that, and I’m not sorry that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein is gone,” Gephardt said in a blunt dismissal of new criticism he faced Tuesday from the frontrunner in the Democratic race, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

Gephardt then turned his fire on Bush with a history-laden term -- “quagmire” -- which invokes the unpopular Vietnam War.

“The burden of proof for a failed foreign policy -- the presumption of guilt for a deadly quagmire in the sands of Iraq, with no exit strategy and scant international support -- does not rest with those who supported it, on good faith and with America’s security at heart,” Gephardt said.

“No, it is the Bush administration itself that bungled the debate at the United Nations, fumbled the U.N.-supervised weapons inspections, failed to build a coalition to help our soldiers and now has no apparent plan to bring safety and democracy to the Iraqi people.”

Later Tuesday, en route to a rally in Seattle, Gephardt explained his use of the word quagmire. “I don’t mean to say this is Vietnam,” Gephardt said. “It’s a different situation. It’s a very tough, long haul.”

He said he agreed with a word that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has used to describe the Iraq campaign: “slog.”

In his address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Gephardt derided Bush’s approach to the world as arrogant and unilateralist. He said he would use trade policy to help improve conditions in impoverished nations and would boost funding for democratic institutions and small businesses in the developing world.

Chief of House Democrats from 1989 to 2002, Gephardt portrayed himself as a leader with world experience and diplomatic skills.

“We don’t need a president who says, ‘Bring ‘em on’ to those who would do us harm,” he said, referring to a taunt Bush directed at Iraqi insurgents. “We need a president who will do the hard work of diplomacy and says, ‘Bring ‘em in’ to those who share our aspirations for freedom, peace and security.”

After his speech, Gephardt was asked whether, as president, he would have confronted Iraq before acting on potential threats posed by North Korea and Iran.

“I don’t have a real clear answer to what I would have done first. I’m not sure I would have addressed Iraq first,” he said.

“I do think that if you had the intelligence that we had, that you had to pay attention to it. We were very worried then and still are worried about weapons of mass destruction winding up in the United States.”