WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- Sen. Ted Kennedy, in a speech to Washington's Council on Foreign Relations Friday, lashed out at President Bush for manipulating intelligence to invade Iraq.
"Iraq was not an imminent threat, had no nuclear weapons, no persuasive links to al-Qaida, no connection to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," the Massachusetts senator said.
He accused the Bush administration of distorting evidence and ignoring facts and called on CIA Director George Tenet to explain his silence on questionable intelligence in the months before the invasion.
Kennedy said, "Any failure in intelligence is dwarfed by the administration's manipulation ... in making the case for war" and said that upon arrival in the Oval Office, George W. Bush considered Iraq to be "unfinished business" from the first Bush administration.
