Russert challenged Democrats -- but not McCain -- about 2002 Iraq intel "caveats"

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http://mediamatters.org/items/200705140008?f=h_latest

On the May 13 "Meet the Candidates" edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (AZ), "In hindsight, was it a good idea to go into Iraq?" but did not challenge McCain's reply that the invasion of Iraq "was certainly justified" because "very intelligence agency in the world, not just U.S., believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Yet on two separate "Meet the Candidates" editions of Meet the Press, Russert did challenge former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) for their 2002 votes giving President Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq, citing the "caveats" in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concerning the purported existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The NIE was made available to all members of Congress before the vote, according to The Washington Post. Russert did not challenge McCain with either a general question about the contrary evidence in the NIE or a question about the basis for his explicit assertion one day before the war resolution vote that "o wait for Saddam Hussein to threaten imminent attack against America would be to acquiesce to his development of nuclear weapons."

In addition, during the interview, McCain made the much-disputed assertion that if the United States withdraws from Iraq, "these people will try to follow us home," which Russert also did not challenge.