NYTimes.com Article: Gore Says Bush Betrayed the U.S. by Using 9/11 as a Reason for War in Iraq

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Gore Says Bush Betrayed the U.S. by Using 9/11 as a Reason for War in Iraq

February 9, 2004
 By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE 



 

NASHVILLE, Feb. 8 - In a withering critique of the Bush
administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday
accused the president of betraying the country by using the
Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of
Iraq. 

"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the
microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a
stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took
America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to
our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before
9/11 ever took place." 

The speech had several hundred Democrats roaring their
approval for Mr. Gore, the party's 2000 standard-bearer. 

Mr. Gore was one of three Tennessee Democrats, along with
former Gov. Ned McWherter and former Senator James Sasser,
being honored by the state party two days before the
state's Democratic primary on Tuesday. 

The event served as a neutral platform for this season's
candidates. Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Senator John Edwards
addressed the crowd, but it was Mr. Gore who fired it up. 

While the other honorees and party officials gave a nod to
all of the candidates, Mr. Gore, who has endorsed Howard
Dean, referred to his candidate in a nonpartisan manner. 

He said he appreciated that Dr. Dean "spoke forthrightly"
against the war in Iraq, brought new people into the party
and inspired the grass roots over the Internet. But Mr.
Gore told the crowd that at an earlier reception for Dr.
Dean, who was in Maine, he had said that no matter who won
Tennessee on Tuesday, "any one of these candidates is far
better than George W. Bush." 

But his appreciation of Dr. Dean was tucked in passing into
a fiery meditation on his own political history, including
a recollection of the tactics used by the Republicans
against his father, a longtime populist senator from
Tennessee, in his last, losing election in 1970. 

He recalled that President Richard M. Nixon had used "the
politics of fear" to make his father, Albert Gore Sr., out
to be unpatriotic and an atheist. And when his father lost,
Mr. Gore said, his father said: "The truth shall rise
again." 

He said he recalled that defeat because "the last three
years we've seen the politics of fear rear its ugly head
again." Like the Nixon administration, Mr. Gore said, the
Bush administration is not committed to principle but is
obsessed with its re-election. 

"The American people recognize that there's a lot of
politics going on," said Claire Buchan, a White House
spokeswoman, in reference to Mr. Gore's comments. 

Mr. Gore said he was ready to break his silence about his
disagreements with the Bush administration before the Sept.
11 attacks, but afterward he threw his speech in the trash.


But then the war in Iraq came, and he felt betrayed. "It is
not a minor matter to take the loyalty and deep patriotic
feelings of the American people and trifle with them," he
declared, adding with a shout: "The truth shall rise
again." 

General Clark followed Mr. Gore with a notably tamer
speech. But he honored Mr. Gore, saying, "The 2000 election
was stolen from the Democratic Party," and that Mr. Gore
"would have been and should have been a great president." 

Mr. Edwards arrived long after Mr. Gore spoke and
apparently had little idea of what had occurred inside the
room. He invoked his Southern roots and was greeted with
cheers. 

Earlier, on the ABC program "This Week," he seemed to leave
the door open just a crack to the possibility of being the
vice-presidential nominee if he does not win the
nomination. 

While reiterating that he was not interested in being vice
president and did not see a circumstance where he would
change his mind, he was less unequivocal when asked why he
would not accept the nomination "if your party needs you." 

"You don't know what's going to happen a month, three
months, six months from now," Mr. Edwards said. "As I sit
here today, I intend to fight with everything I've got to
be the nominee. I think I am the alternative in the
Democratic Party to Senator Kerry." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/politics/campaign/09GORE.html?ex=1077342691&ei=1&en=4d8a5ec7de25a66b


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