WASHINGTON – Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean used some of his harshest language ever in a "Meet the Press" interview, charging President Bush deliberately lied and deceived the American people and Congress to lead them into the Iraq invasion.

Howard Dean on NBC's 'Meet the Press'

In reacting to Bush's speech Friday, in which the president charged Democrats were sending the wrong signal to America's enemies with the focus on criticisms of pre-war intelligence and the nation's conduct in the war, Dean said: "I think Democrats always have to stand up and tell the truth and that's what we're doing. The truth is that the president misled America when he sent us to war. They did. He even didn't tell the truth in the speech he gave. First of all, think there were a lot of veterans were kind of upset that the president chose their day to make a partisan speech. Secondly, the president didn't even tell the truth in his speech. He said that the Senate had the same intelligence that everybody else did. That was not true. He withheld some intelligence. Then he said the commissions all said that what he had done in the lead-up up to the war was fine."

Asked what the president withheld, Dean charged that Bush withheld proof that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks. Dean claims Bush deliberately corrupted intelligence reports and sent them to Congress.

"The intelligence was corrupted, not just because of the incompetence of the CIA; it was corrupted because it was being changed around before it was presented to Congress," he said. "Stuff was taken out and not presented. All of this business about weapons of mass destruction, there was significant and substantial evidence passed from the CIA and the State Department to, perhaps, the office of the vice president -- we don't know just where -- in the White House that said, 'There is a strong body of opinion that says they don't have a nuclear program, nor do they have weapons of mass destruction.' And that intelligence was not given to the Congress of the United States."

Dean repeatedly characterized the Bush administration as "corrupt."

"Now that the cracks are really beginning to appear in this corrupt administration that we have running this country, now they're all running for their own and they're beginning to stand up and say, 'This is what really happened,'" said Dean about Republicans breaking with the president. "Honest Republicans are coming forward in this administration and saying, 'This is what really happened in the lead-up to the war, and the president was not truthful with the American people.'"

Dean said Bush's untruthfulness extends beyond Iraq into domestic issues as well. He accused Bush of purposely concealing the actual size of the deficit.

"Iraq is not on the books," he said. "The money they take out of Social Security is not on the books. This is an administration that has a fundamental problem telling the truth."

Time and time again, Dean returned to the issue of truth. Citing a poll that suggests 80 percent of Jordanians don't believe America, he suggested those numbers might be different in Democrats were in power.

"Telling the truth has a lot to do with defending America," he explained. "If people don't believe you -- if 80 percent of the people in Jordan, which is one of our most important allies, don't believe us, then we've got a bigger defense problem with (Abu Musab) Zarqawi than we do if people -- if we become once again, as we have been in the past, the moral beacon for the rest of the world. And that's what we need to do. So a strong defense policy -- we do need a strong defense policy. We need to make it clear that Democrats will stand up for America and pull the trigger in defense of America, but we fundamentally first need to tell the truth so we're believable again."

Dean also charged Republicans are cutting school lunch programs, "kicking people off their health care."

Dean's answer?

"We have an alternative agenda," he said. "We made it very clear. We want a strong national security based on telling the truth to our people at home, our soldiers and our allies. We want jobs in America that'll stay in America, and we believe that renewable energy is one of the areas where we can do that. We want a health-care system that covers everybody, just like 36 other countries in the world. We want a strong public education system. And most of all, we want honesty back in government. I think that's a pretty good agenda."

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