“By its actions, the Bush administration threatens to give a bad name to a just war,” Lieberman said, at a July 28 press conference at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. “But by their words, some in my party are sending out a message that they don’t know a just war when they see it, and, more broadly, they’re not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security and the cause of freedom.

“We’ve watched some opponents of the war seize upon this emerging scandal with disquieting zeal, as though it offers proof that they were right all along,” Lieberman continued. “The same is true of some of those who supported the war but now seem to have forgotten why. What made this war just was the clear evidence of 12 years of Saddam Hussein’s brutality and evasion of responsibility. And that is not diminished by those 16 misleading words in George W. Bush’s speech.”

Lieberman was referring to the much-publicized statement by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address that the Iraqi regime was trying to get uranium from Africa for its alleged nuclear weapons program.

When pressed by reporters on who he was referring to among Democrats, Lieberman pointed to former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Senator John Kerry, and House minority leader Richard Gephardt.

“Look, Governor Dean has had a principled objection to the war,” Lieberman said, according to a transcript of the press conference. “He said the other day after the death, or the killing, of Saddam’s two sons that the ends don’t justify the means. I don’t agree with that.”

When he was asked about specifying who were the Democratic Party leaders who supported the war but now seem to have forgotten why, Lieberman stated, “I’ve been reading statements made by Senator Kerry and Congressman Gephardt—there’s a danger that in expressing the justified questions about the 16 words in the State of the Union, about the stunning lack of preparedness of the Bush administration in post-Saddam Iraq, that we obscure the fact that this was a just war.”

As Lieberman pointed out, the large majority of Democrats in Congress voted for a resolution supporting the U.S.-led assault on Iraq and have backed the occupation of the country, including the actions of the U.S. military there such as the recent killing of two of Saddam Hussein’s sons.

Dean is among the most liberal of the nine Democratic presidential aspirants, and one of the leading contenders for his party’s nomination so far. In the speech launching his presidential campaign June 23, he criticized “the doctrine of preemptive war espoused by this administration” and its “disdain for allies, treaties, and international organizations.” He also vowed to “defend America against terrorism,” and chastised the Bush administration for failing to find “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.  
 
 
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