Democrats blast Bush for lack of candor on Iraq

8 September 2003, 18:00 PM

AFP, Washington

US Democratic leaders accused President George W. Bush of showing a lack of candor on Iraq, but many still expressed grudging support for the president after he asked for a huge cash injection into the war-ravaged country in a rare primetime speech to the nation late Sunday.

The rallying of Republicans and centrist Democrats to the side of the commander-in-chief served as an early indication that his upcoming request for an additional 87 billion dollars to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was likely to garner the congressional support needed for passage.

Democratic Senator Joseph Biden said he believed the presidential address, which contained an appeal to the United Nations to play a more visible role in Iraq, marked a switch from unilateralism to multilateralism in Bush's approach to the war on terror.

"I think it took a big man to do that, and I plan on supporting him," argued the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Republican Jon Kyl, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, urged Americans, in an interview with CNN, to support the president despite the growing cost of the war, and to "resist the American impulse to hurry up and get a job over with."

Congressman Richard Gephardt, a moderate Democrat running for the White House, said Bush's effort "to enlist our allies for help is long overdue."

Even Democratic presidential frontrunner Howard Dean, a vehement opponent of the war, warned that "failure in Iraq is not an option."

But the former Vermont governor expressed doubt Bush's televised address to the nation was going to convince the rest of the world to be part of Iraq's reconstruction.