Republican congressman outs himself

U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., is coming out of the closet.
No, not that kind of closet. The closet where they stuffed all of the Republicans who didn’t agree with President Bush’s pre-emtive invasion of Iraq.

Here is what Bereuter told his constituents the other day:

”I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.
That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," he said.
"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."
As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.”

Wow, John Kerry couldn’t have said it better.

Bereuter is not just any old congressman either. He is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Of course, Bereuter is only saying all this on the last day of his Congressional career before he steps down to take a job in the private sector, perhaps to clear his conscience or something.