WASHINGTON, Sept 25: The United States top Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday demanded that President George W. Bush apologize to the American people for politicizing a potential war on Iraq and implying that Democrats were not interested in the nation’s security.

He ticked off a list of comments by White House pollsters, Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card, Vice President Dick Cheney, and finally Bush himself, who said on Monday the Democrat-controlled “Senate is not interested in the security of the American people.”

“That is outrageous. Outrageous,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said on the Senate floor, barely able to contain his anger.

“We ought not politicize the rhetoric about war and life and death.”

“I don’t think this president or any president ought to make the charge that Democrats don’t care about national security, not when they’ve fought in wars, not when they’ve fought side-by-side with Republicans and independents in keeping this country free,” he told reporters shortly afterwards.

The White House had no immediate reaction to Daschle’s comments.

But during a meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Bush bristled at a reporter’s question on whether he was politicizing the war on terrorism.

“A legitimate national security concern is what it is. You may try to politicize it. I view it as my main obligation, that is to protect the American people.”

“It’s the most important job this president will have and it’s the most important job future presidents will have because the nature of war has changed.”

Republican Minority Leader Trent Lott said Daschle needed to “cool the rhetoric.”

“Accusations of that kind are not helpful,” he said.

Daschle was reacting to what he said appeared to be a growing, concerted campaign by Bush administration officials and the president himself to turn the notion of a war on Iraq into an election issue just weeks before the country votes for a new Congress.

The statements, Daschle said, threw into question the motivation of the Bush administration in bringing the Iraq debate to the fore just weeks before the November 5 congressional elections, in which the balance of power in the 51-49 Democratically-held Senate is at stake.

“It sheds great doubt on what their intentions are,” he said.

Bush has stressed national security and action against Iraq in Republican campaign fund-raising speeches in different US states in past weeks.

Negotiations are underway in Congress on a draft resolution on Iraq that Bush presented to Congress authorizing him to “use all means” to strip Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction.

Daschle has supported action against Iraq, but said Wednesday he was concerned that politicization of the issue could undermine lawmakers’ efforts “to do that job right.”

“You can’t ignore the subject,” retorted Lott. “The president and vice president have been very careful to handle this the right way.”

Although lawmakers differ on how the US should handle Iraq and how much leeway to grant the president, Lott said there was broad agreement on the resolution and only “word tweaking” remained before it came up before the Senate floor.—AFP