General Wesley Clark delivered a searing indictment of the Bush administration on Friday, asserting that its "headlong rush to war" was based on twisted facts and had violated the nation's democratic principles "with dire consequences for our security."
He said that the administration was governing "against the will of the majority" by being secretive, demonizing critics and retaliating harshly "against anyone who expresses dissent, questions their facts or challenges their logic."
Clark, 58, a former supreme Allied commander in Europe for NATO and the most recent entrant into the Democratic presidential race, called for an investigation of the intelligence information that led the country into the Iraq war.
"We need an independent, comprehensive investigation into the administration's handling of the intelligence leading to war in Iraq," he said. "Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims," he said, adding, "We need to know if we were intentionally deceived."
And as other Democratic presidential candidates have done, he called for an independent commission to investigate accusations that the White House released the name of a covert operative whose husband had challenged Bush's assertions that Iraq posed a threat. The Justice Department is investigating the assertions.
"Why," Clark asked, "would White House officials have had that name?"
His speech, delivered here to a group of military reporters, was his clearest enunciation of his rationale for running -- that as the commander of NATO forces who pulled together the 19-member alliance to win its first and only war, in Kosovo in 1999, he was a sophisticated and experienced player on the international stage.
It also underscored his other rationale -- that as a four-star general, he had the credentials and credibility to challenge Bush not only on the war in Iraq but also on America's role in the world at a time when national security is a heightened priority.
His campaign aides suggest that Clark is running for president because he is "the right man at the right time." He said as much in his speech on Friday as he described the confluence of a disturbing series of events, including the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, reports that CIA analysts felt pressured to make their intelligence assessments of Iraq conform with the administration's policy objectives and a report by the House intelligence committee that there was insufficient evidence to go to war.
Moreover, he said, the administration had fractured its relationship with its allies. He said this was not an accident, but "a direct consequence of the willful decisions of the administration to turn its back on 60 years of national security success that came directly from strong alliances."
Clark, who retired from the Army three years ago, said that since leaving the service he had been briefed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and seen some of the intelligence that led the administration to declare war in Iraq.
In neither case, he said, had he heard or seen anything that should have compelled the nation to war. He said he had heard "behind the scenes" justifications for the war, such as that it would be a good way to reshape the Middle East.
"I'm retired," Clark said. "I'm not in that chain of command. That's why I'm speaking out. That's why I'm answering the call."
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