Campaigning in Pensacola, Florida on 10 August 2004, President George W. Bush said he felt vindicated after his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, stated that he would still have voted to authorize military force in Iraq, even knowing what was known then about the missing weapons of mass destruction.
Kerry had supported the 2002 war resolution and later turned critical of the conflict, faulting Bush over the absent WMD stockpiles and the lack of any proven link between Baghdad and al-Qaeda. Pressed on whether he would cast the same vote again, he told reporters that he would, calling it the right authority for a president to hold.
The Bush camp treated the remark as an endorsement of a war that had by then cost more than 900 American lives. "I want to thank Senator Kerry for clearing that up," Bush told a rally.
Democrats pushed back hard. Advisers Richard Holbrooke and Rand Beers said Kerry's position had not changed and that his vote was never a blank check for going to war without allies or a plan to secure the peace. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Kerry had shifted his stance on Iraq repeatedly.
Where it stands now. With the race tight and Iraq at its center, Bush went on to win a second term on 2 November 2004, defeating Kerry in the general election.
TurkishPress summary of a August 2004 wire report.