Former US Senator John Edwards, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004, broke with his campaign stance on the war in Iraq, declaring in a newspaper opinion piece that he made "a mistake" in supporting the invasion. "I was wrong," Edwards wrote in the Washington Post, saying he now regrets his decision to give US President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
"Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003."
The former North Carolina senator continued: "The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda."
"It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake," Edwards wrote, in what will likely be seen as a gambit to reposition himself ahead of a 2008 presidential run.
He wrote those remarks as US public support for the war has plummeted, as has Bush's popularity, in large part because of the mounting US casualties there, and as a growing number of politicians are questioning the wisdom of the US-led campaign to oust former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Edwards was the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in their failed November election bid.
