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Bush, whose administration cited the weapons and alleged terrorist links to justify the war, challenged the Democratic presidential nominee on Friday at a campaign rally in Stratham, N.H., to tell voters whether intelligence disclosures since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 would have altered his position on the war. ''My opponent hasn't answered the question of whether, knowing what we know now, he would have supported going into Iraq," Bush said. ''The American people deserve a clear yes-or-no answer."
In response, Kerry, distinguishing between invading Iraq and authorizing the action said, ''Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have." Kerry has said the decision to invade rested with the president.
Then, in his most direct challenge to Bush about the war, Kerry listed four questions for the president, inquiring about prewar intelligence, postwar planning, the lack of efforts to bring other nations into the war as allies, and why Americans were misled about the war.
And unlike Bush, who never mentioned Kerry by name during his New Hampshire campaign stop, the Massachusetts senator said, ''My question to President Bush is: Why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace? Why did he rush to war on faulty intelligence and not do the hard work necessary to give America the truth? Why did he mislead America about how he would go to war? Why has he not brought other countries to the table in order to support American troops in the way that we deserve it and relieve a pressure from the American people?
''There are four not-hypothetical questions -- like the president's -- (but) real questions that matter to Americans, and I hope you'll get the answers to those questions, because the American people deserve them," Kerry said. http://tinyurl.com/3k2js
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