he knew all the facts that have come out over the last few months.


http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...mplate=printart

Bayh - different vote on Iraq now
By Mary Beth Schneider
mary.beth.schneider@indystar.com
December 1, 2005

Saying that he relied on inaccurate information, Sen. Evan Bayh said today he would not have voted in 2002 to authorize President Bush to go to war in Iraq if he had known then what he knows now.
“Of course I would have done things differently knowing what I know today,” Bayh told reporters at his Indianapolis office.
But, he added, “I did what I thought was right at the time. Now it turns out that some of the facts were inaccurate. There were no weapons of mass destruction. We didn’t realize that this undertaking would be carried out in some ways as incompently as it’s been carried out.”

But Bayh, a Democrat exploring a run for the presidency in 2008, quickly added: “We do support freedom, we do support democracy, we don’t support dictators. And we want to assure the troops who are representing us in Iraq that they have our unwavering support.”

If the Senate were faced with such a vote again, Bayh said, “of course we’re going to insist on better intelligence next time; of course we will have, God willing, a better understanding about the complexity of nation-building in a society as complex as Iraq..... A list of tragic mistakes were made in the way this was conducted.”

Bayh said President Bush “took a step, but not all the steps” that need to be taken toward a resolution of the Iraq conflict in his Wednesday speech.

Bayh said that while no specific timetable should be given for American withdrawal from Iraq, a series of goals and strategies should be outlined to measure progress.

“We need to say how much this is going to cost, what it’s going to take, how we’re going to measure progress and some general time-frame for how long we think that might take,” he said.

While specific dates would be inappropriate, he said, “it just can’t be open-ended, forever and ever.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ld/13305125.htm

Bayh says vote for Iraq war would be different under new facts

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS - Sen. Evan Bayh said Thursday that he would not have supported a resolution authorizing military action in Iraq if he knew then what he knows now.

"I did what I thought was right. Some of the facts I relied on were inaccurate," Bayh said. "Of course I would do things differently knowing what I know today. Unfortunately, you know, that's not how life works. The important thing is what we do going forward."

Bayh was among 77 senators who voted for a resolution in October 2002 that gave President Bush the power to use military force to enforce United Nations orders that Iraq dispose of its weapons of mass destruction. The House also approved the war resolution.

Bayh, an Indiana Democrat who has been testing the waters for a possible presidential run in 2008, said he cast his vote then "based on the facts as we understood them at the time."

"Now it turns out that some of the fact were inaccurate," he said. "There were no weapons of mass destruction, we didn't realize this undertaking would be carried out as in some ways as incompetently as it's been carried out. So knowing what we know today, of course we'd do things differently.

"But I think it's important to say that in a way that does not obscure that we do support freedom, we do support democracy, we don't support dictators, and we want to assure the troops who are representing us in Iraq that they have our unwavering support even though we realize ... that things haven't gone quite as we expected them to go."

Bayh did not say there should be a set date for a withdrawal of troops, but some timing benchmarks for progress and how that progress will be measured