GRAHAM: MAY BE GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT OF BUSH
CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham said on Thursday there were grounds to impeach President Bush if he was found to have led America to war under false pretenses.
While Graham did not call for Bush's impeachment, he said if the president lied about the reasons for going to war with Iraq it would be "more serious" than former President Bill Clinton's lie under oath about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
"If in fact we went to war under false pretenses that is a very serious charge," Graham, the senior U.S. senator from Florida, told reporters in New Hampshire.
"If the standard of impeachment is the one the House Republicans used against Bill Clinton, this clearly comes within that standard," he said.
Democrats and some Republicans have raised questions about the unsubstantiated claim Bush made in his January State of the Union speech that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Graham's comments came as reporters followed up on his remarks earlier this week that any deception by Bush over Iraq might rise to the standard of an impeachable offense -- as defined by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives when it voted to impeach Clinton.
Clinton was ultimately cleared by the U.S. Senate after being impeached by the House.
After his appearance in New Hampshire, Graham issued a statement saying he was not calling for Bush's impeachment and saw the issue as a largely academic one, adding that if Bush had misled the American public he would pay the price for it in the 2004 presidential election.
In Washington on Thursday, Bush told a news conference that the speech reference was based on "sound intelligence" and he was certain that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program.
"We won't be proven wrong," he said with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side.
The flap over Iraq upstaged Graham's economic proposals. He said his plan would balance the federal budget within five years while providing middle-class tax relief and creating 3 million new jobs.
His plan would repeal most of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. It would reinstate a 38.6 percent tax bracket for wealthy individuals and create a new "millionaires tax bracket" at 40 percent. Graham also proposed cracking down on individuals and companies who transfer assets offshore or renounce U.S. citizenship to escape taxation.
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