Edwards: Iraq war vote was mistake

He blames faulty intelligence, calls for troop reductions

When John Edwards represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate, he was among the more hawkish Democrats on Iraq, warning that Saddam Hussein was close to getting nuclear weapons.

While he was on the national ticket last year, Edwards walked a fine line, voicing support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq but sharply criticizing the way President Bush was conducting the war.

Now Edwards says he made a mistake in 2002 when he voted to authorize the war, saying his vote was based on bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that Iraq was said to be harboring.

"I was wrong," Edwards wrote in a guest column published Sunday in The Washington Post. "It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake."

As Edwards' views evolve, pundits assume that he is preparing to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

Howard Dean, the national Democratic chairman and an early opponent of the war, said Edwards was "very courageous" to admit that he was wrong.

Chris Kromm of Durham, a critic of the war, said he thought Edwards was taking "a courageous stand" by now opposing it, but wondered why it took him three years "to come to that realization."

"More than anything, that is why a lot of Democrats didn't get riled up for his candidacy -- the war issue," said Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, a nonpartisan group. "The question is: Was [Edwards' statement] strong enough to rally behind, or will they say it's too little, too late?"

Ed Turlington, a Raleigh lawyer and Edwards adviser, said Edwards' doubts about the war have been growing as it become clearer that the intelligence was flawed. But Turlington said Edwards was reluctant to voice his opposition because he didn't want it to be misconstrued as a lack of support for the troops.

"He wrote it after thinking long and hard about the subject," Turlington said.

Republicans were dismissive of Edwards' shift.

"John Edwards learned at the foot of the master, John Kerry, how to be on all sides of an issue," said Bill Peaslee, executive director of the state Republican Party. "He is flip-flopping just like John Kerry. If we wait another year he will probably have a different position."

Edwards was unavailable for comment Monday. He was giving a speech in United Arab Emirates. He was scheduled to fly to India today.

Edwards' shift comes as polls show that a large number of Democratic voters oppose the war in Iraq.

Chuck Todd, editor of The Hotline, a Washington-based Internet political newsletter, said Edwards might be positioning himself to the left of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to pick up the anti-war vote. Todd said Edwards may also be trying to prevent Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., from emerging as the anti-war candidate as Dean did during the last presidential race.

"His viability ... is going to have to be sort of both anti-Hillary and run to his left," Todd said.

But Todd said that Edwards' position is not unusual for Democrats. He noted that John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate last year, has called for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

"Edwards has not done a timeline," Todd said. "That puts him closer to the center of the party."

What he said then

Edwards' views on the war have changed over the years. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was one of 77 senators who voted to authorize the war. Edwards called Saddam Hussein's regime "an imminent theat."

"With our allies," Edwards said in 2002, "we must do whatever is necessary to guard against the threat posed by an Iraq with weapons of mass destruction and under the thumb of Saddam Hussein."