Couldn't the Democrats force the Senate to meet more often? Ask more questions? Be more confrontational? Or do Democratic senators, like lawmakers in both parties and chambers, not want to give up their comfortable three-day workweeks?

They have rules in the Senate, and they could ask more questions.

Why don't they?

I wonder myself. In respect to the greatest question that has come before this Senate in my lifetime -- or at least during my career, which extends over a half century -- we failed.

You're talking about the war?

The war, yes. We failed. We relegated ourselves to the sidelines. How many times? How many times did I hear the words [from other senators, privately], "Let's get this thing behind us. Let's talk about something else. It would be better for us in the election if we changed the subject."

This "thing" being the war resolution?

The war resolution, yes. We had our little meetings. We talked about those things very little in the conferences. When it came to the run-up to the war in the last few days, the silence was deadening.

Why?

[Democratic] senators were afraid. Those who were running [for reelection] didn't want to be charged with being unpatriotic -- and they would be. They believed the garbage that was being spewed out by the administration. They believed that Hussein constituted an immediate threat. They were told that there were drones that could be sent over here and used to destroy human life. It was scary, if it were really true.

But then what does it say about the judgment of both John Kerry and John Edwards that they voted for the war?

It says the information on which they based their judgment was false. That's what it says to me. And [the information] has since been shown to be false. Hussein couldn't get a plane off the ground during the war.

But shouldn't they have questioned more vigorously the administration's rationale for the war?

Well, I have no reason to doubt that they did question it. In our conferences, I don't remember any senator who did not question to some degree -- but [it was] not enough. As far as I was concerned, I didn't believe it, and said so at the time. But this administration misled senators and House members. I think the stories this administration told -- I remember the vice president, I believe it was on Aug. 26, 2002, when he spoke before the VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars] national convention, said something like, "Simply stated there is no doubt that Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." That's the vice president of the United States, and he's saying, "There is no doubt that Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." And [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld said, "We know where they are. They're outside Baghdad, in the north, in the east, in the west." Now, that's what I'm sure John Kerry and all the other senators who voted that way [based] their decisions on.

Given that the rationale for war was predicated on lies or untruths, if there had been a Democratic-led House, do you think President Bush would have been impeached? After all, the House impeached President Clinton, even though his conduct had no bearing on national security.

I kind of doubt it. This is not to say that he might not still be impeached. Things are coming to light now that people need to know.

Why do you doubt it?

Everything was caught up in Sept. 11. That has an impact on members of Congress, as it did with everybody else. We immediately went to war, and rightly so, in Afghanistan because we were attacked. Any president in that situation would have acted as Bush did. The country was almost 100 percent behind Bush when he went in to attack the Taliban. There wasn't any chance of Bush's being impeached that early [even if Democrats had run the House].

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