An anti-war political action committee said U.S. Senate candidate Josh Riles is misleading voters about his position on the Iraq war in television ads hitting the Baltimore market.
In the first of two ads, Democrat Riles says, “We?ve been fighting a war over foreign oil,” with “tragic” cost in lives. He concludes, “In the Senate, I?ll vote to bring our troops home within a year, and I?ll work for an alternative energy policy so we never have to fight this kind of war again.”
But John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, said Riles took a different position on a June 20 WYPR radio show in which Riles said, “If I was in the Senate at the time, I would have been like a lot of other senators who initially supported the war” based on Iraq?s connection to al-Qaida and its weapons of mass destruction.
“It?s time for Mr. Riles to stop misleading Maryland voters and come clean about his support for President Bush?s war in Iraq,” Isaacs said in a statement.
The council endorsed Rep. Ben Cardin, one of the main contenders for the Democratic Senate nomination. Cardin opposed the resolution authorizing the war but has voted for funding the war effort once it was under way. Last month, Cardin advocated bringing 100,000 soldiers home immediately.
“There were millions of American who were not fooled by President Bush?s rationale for going to war, including both Maryland?s senators,” Isaacs said, “but given that Mr. Riles was a Republican at the time, his support for the war is not surprising.”
Riles spokesman Alyson Chadwick said, “Josh has been consistent on the war. Like many Americans, he believed what the president said.”
Rales?s disillusionment with Bush on the war and with Republicans in general about their lack of fiscal responsibility, along with their socially conservative policies are “what brought him back to the Democratic Party,” which had been his party affiliation to the mid-1990s, Chadwick said.
She suggested that voters “go to the Web site at RalesforSenate.org and see for themselves.”
