Bayh on Iraq vote

The Mercury News reports from the AP what has been making the rounds for a while dealing with Senator Bayh and his vote on the war resolution.

"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.

People ask me how I would have voted. I was against the war from the start but I support the troops. I hope they are brought home by the end of 2006.