Kerry accuses Bush, Cheney of `misleading' in Iraqi war run-up [View All]

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Kerry accuses Bush, Cheney of `misleading' in Iraqi war run-up

Sen. John Kerry said Monday Vice President Dick Cheney is "misleading" the American people when he asserts Congress saw the same prewar intelligence as he and President Bush did before approving the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"That is just plain, flat, not true," said the Massachusetts Democrat, who was his party's 2004 presidential nominee.

And in a pointed rebuttal to a speech delivered by Cheney only hours earlier, Kerry accused Bush and Cheney of concealing critical dissenting information before Congress voted in October 2002 to support military action in Iraq. Kerry was among those who voted yes.

The senator said:

-Bush said Iraq had a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons, but the U.S. Air Force disagreed "and the Air Force's dissent was kept secret, even as the president publicly made the opposite case before the vote.

"Congress wasn't told that," Kerry told reporters at his Boston office, a line he would repeat after outlining each charge.