Nicholas F. Benton's White House Report

In a manner befitting a clear conscience and dedication to the truth above partisanship, soon-retiring Republican Congressman Doug Bereuter from Nebraska remarked forthrightly and with courage this week, declaring, "It was a mistake to launch that military action (in Iraq)."

A man who stood up to speak adamantly in favor of the President's war resolution in October 2002, Bereuter said in a letter to constituents reported in the Lincoln Journal Star yesterday, "I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake."

He added, poignantly, "Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action."

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is leaving Congress almost immediately after serving 13 terms to become president of the Asia Foundation effective Sept. 1.

Bereuter added in his letter that, "In addition to a massive failure or misrepresentation of intelligence," there were other mistakes made by the Bush administration. "From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force. Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."

He went on that, as a result of the invasion, "Our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

As noted by the Associated Press, Bereuter's conclusions confirmed the assessment of Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, also a Republican, in the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the false intelligence assessments of the Iraqi threat released last month. Roberts noted that Congress might not have approved the Iraq invasion has lawmakers known the truth.

Roberts said that without an immediate threat that Saddam Hussein had and was trying to get weapons of mass destruction, military action against Iraq still could have been justified on humanitarian grounds but that the battle plan might have been different from a full-scale invasion.

It's regrettable that such views from credible and powerful Republican congressional leaders cannot be appropriately utilized by the Democratic opposition to the Bush administration architects of the Iraq invasion, because Presidential candidate John Kerry took the opposite position to Bereuter's just last week.

In retrospect, Bereuter said, based on what we know now, "it was a mistake to launch that military action."

Even Republican apologist George Will, commenting on ABC-TV's This Week show last Sunday, said as much, exclaiming that someone would be crazy to think that, based on what we know now, an invasion of Iraq was justified.

But not so, Sen. Kerry. Asked point-blank, as we noted in this space last week, he said that based on what is known now, he still would have voted for the President's war resolution. That unfortunately means that the closer he were to come to Rep. Bereuter now, the more embarrassing that baffling and untenable position would become.

Kerry had the opportunity to clarify his remarks in an address to the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cincinnati yesterday, but instead lifted whole sections from his Democratic Convention acceptance speech to repeat verbatim.

Still, in the trenches, Democratic activists and the swelling ranks of anti-Bush Republicans and traditionally non-political but now alarmed citizens are showing signs of a real mobilization. In little Falls Church, Virginia, a "meet up" intended to be a sleepy house party to discuss the Democratic Convention stunned local organizers when it drew over 50, with as many as two-thirds being people many on the local party committee had never met before.

Similarly, at the official opening of the Kerry headquarters in Northern Virginia Sunday, the small office was jammed to overflowing. Hundreds of individuals, including kids and dogs, filled the lobby of the building. Meanwhile, news came that the Democratic National Committee has deployed 23 paid organizers to Virginia, which it is on the verge of officially declaring a "battleground state" even though it hasn't gone Democratic in a presidential election since 1964. The assessment is buoyed by reports that Democratic Governor Mark Warner's approval rating is now at 78%.