Senator Prods Bush on Prewar Iraq Claims [View All]

[Bushfire]

By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) could make the controversy over the now-infamous 16 words of his State of the Union address go away by telling Americans whether the speech's justification for war was exaggerated, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday.

"It's just a question of was it right, or was it wrong?" Sen. Jay Rockefeller said.

He said the question is not whether Bush tried to mislead by using suspect British government information that Iraq (news - web sites) sought to buy uranium in Africa, and that Democrats should not personalize or politicize the argument.

"Intelligence is the basis now of war-fighting," Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said on "Fox News Sunday." Because of that, he said, "it's very important to intelligence to say that facts really do matter, they count, they have to be accurate."

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