Bereuter: War unjustified

LINCOLN (AP) — Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter has broken himself away from his party in the final days of his Congressional career, saying he believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified.

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.

The Lincoln Journal Star reported the outgoing 1st District Congressman's statements in today's editions.

"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified," he said.

Bereuter serves as a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation effective Sept. 1.

Bereuter sent the letter to constituents who have contacted him about the war.

"I felt I should send you a forthright update of my views and conclusions on that subject before I leave office," he wrote.

In 2002, Bereuter spoke out in support of a House resolution authorizing the president to go to war.

He said his vote was based on faulty, or misrepresented, intelligence that led to the fear Saddam Hussein would share weapons of mass destruction with terrorists.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

In a floor statement on the 2002 vote, Bereuter urged that the international coalition be expanded and the administration adequately plan for the consequences of war and not divert resources from the battle against al-Qaida and the stabilization of Afghanistan.

President Bush has continued to argue the war was justified because Saddam represented a threat to the United States, his neighbors and the people of Iraq.

Bereuter said as a result of the war, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower, and our alliances are weakened."

Congress and the administration "must learn from the errors and failures" related to the attack and its aftermath, he said.

"The toll in American military casualties and those of civilians, physical damages caused, financial resources spent, and the damage to the support and image of America abroad all demand such an assessment and accounting," he said.

In addition to "a massive failure or misinterpretation of intelligence" concerning weapons of mass destruction, Bereuter said the Bush administration made several other errors in prosecuting the war despite warnings about the consequences.

"From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force," he said. "Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."