The simple truth is the "Kerry saw the intel too" argument. So did Putin. So did Blair. So did the leaders of the Security Council that kept passing unanimous calls to Saddam to "disarm or else".

The information that Kerry got was the product of the intel manipulation, while Bush was a lot closer to the source. None of the other countries where as sure that Saddam has illegal weapons, and the ones that did think he had them (which where the majority) didn't think he had nearly as much as the US was claiming. And several countries where upset with the US when the "or else" became "or war" without a UN vote. The country supports the war becaue the believed the bogus intelligence or where stupid enough to fall for the 9/11 - Saddam link thing.

Kerry isn't fully in the clear on this. But Bush's is attempting to claim that everybody that voted for the authorization measure was backing the war as much as he was. And that is a rather large deception.

The rest of the countries where willing to let the inspection process continue. It wasn't as fast as they might like but it was working and was keeping Saddam under control. Not everybody that felt that Saddam probably did have WMDs felt that he was a big enough threat to justify going to war. I said all along that I expected there to be at least some chemical weapons in Iraq.

Personally I think Kerry lead himself into a Clinton type triangulation trap. He supported authrization bill because he felt that was the posistion that offered the biggest upside and the lowest risk. And now he can't challenge Bush on the intelligence, because it will require publicly admiting his vote was a huge mistake.

Jay