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Washington Times Retracts Kerry-Iraq Statement Claim

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sat Sep 25, 2004 at 04:47:50 AM EST
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First the Washington Times "Inside the Beltway" columnist John McCaslin reports information he received from Rep. Peter King(R-NY) about an Iraq statement Kerry allegedly made when the two were on a Crossfire show in November, 1997. The gist of King's claim was that Kerry, during the show,endorsed a preemptive strike against Iraq. King claimed he had a videotape to prove Kerry made the statement. The Washington Times said no transcripts were available.

Drudge picked the story up. But even Tom MacGuire and Powerline were skeptical.

Lexis to the rescue. Of course there are Crossfire transcripts from 1997. Transcript obtained. Kerry never said it.

Today's Washington Times contains this retraction by McCaslin:

Due to erroneous information from Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican, an item in the Inside the Beltway column in yesterday's editions incorrectly quoted Sen. John Kerry in a 1997 appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" as arguing for a unilateral, pre-emptive war against Iraq.

In reference to a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding access to Iraqi weapons sites, Mr. Kerry actually said: "I think that's our great concern ] where's the backbone of Russia, where's the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity [ but in a sense, they're now climbing into a box and they will have enormous difficulty not following up on this if there is not compliance by Iraq."

Later, referring to French and Russian reservations on the use of force, Mr. Kerry said: "There's absolutely no statement that they have made or that they will make that will prevent the United States of America and this president or any president from acting in what they believe are the best interests of our country."

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