CROWLEY: Congressman Kucinich, I'm going to give you a chance to sort of expand on this just a little.

If you were commander-in-chief, what criteria would you use to justify the use of force? Is anything worth fighting for? And what is that?

KUCINICH: Well, as a matter of fact, it's a foundational principle of our country that we have an obligation to provide for the common defense. Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq, our involvement in Iraq was based on lies. This administration tried to tell the American people that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, with Al Qaida's role in 9/11, with the anthrax attack, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq had the intention and the ability to attack this nation. All of those things are not true. So I think that the cause of defending this country must first and foremost be true.

I want to comment as the only person on this stage who actually voted against the war in Iraq.

I want to say that Governor Dean's answer was incomplete before, because he told CNBC two weeks ago that we have no choice about funding the $87 billion. And this morning in the New York Times, he wouldn't take a position on the $87 billion, and the governor says that he's still for keeping 70,000 troops in Iraq.

Now, he's either right or wrong. If we're wrong to be there, as I believe we are, we should get our troops out. I have a plan to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out, and that's one of the things I want to talk about tonight.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Kucinich, you are in complete agreement – you're in complete agreement?

WOODRUFF: No, I mean on this point.

KUCINICH: I would like to say that it would have been good if Senator Kerry and Congressman Gephardt, both have been articulate in criticizing the president, had actually voted against the resolution that took us to war.

It'll be a year anniversary on October 10th that the bill came to the House.

Now, we had a chance to tell the president no. We had a chance to cancel unilateralism and preemption by saying no. And while it's very well and good to stand here and say we should have done that, I submit that the reason, going back to Jeff Greenfield's question, the reason why people don't trust the Democrats is because our Democratic leadership stood with the president in the Rose Garden and now stands on this stage and attacks him for the war.

I'm saying that war was wrong from the beginning. We should get out of Iraq now, because we're standing there on a lie, we should bring our troops home, that's the bottom line.

Mr. Dean has said that he believes – he says what he believes. I want to ask him, do you believe in spending $87 billion to keep our troops in Iraq? Because I don't. Do you?

DEAN: I get to answer the question?

WOODRUFF: Yes.

DEAN: I believe if the president is serious about supporting our troops in Iraq that he has to say where he's going to get the money from, and that means he's got to get rid of $87 billion worth of the tax cuts that went to Ken Lay and his friends at Enron.

KUCINICH: Would you fund keep the troops in Iraq?

DEAN: Yes.

KUCINICH: You would?

DEAN: If the president was willing to pay for it.

DEAN: You can't do that. And I'll tell you why.

KUCINICH: We have to bring our troops home. They're targets right now.

DEAN: Can I tell why I disagree?

KUCINICH: Yes, finish.

DEAN: First of all, let me tell you what I agree with you about. And in all due respect to John and Joe and Wes and John Edwards and Dick Gephardt, maybe you thought the war was a good idea and maybe you thought it wasn't a bad idea. It wasn't a good idea.

The problem is that we empowered the president to run roughshod over us in the last election because nobody stood up to him on the October vote. If you all had voted no, we could have gone out and made our case to the American people. But instead you didn't vote no.

KUCINICH: You said no, and that's not true. I led the effort. Do you want to correct that statement?

DEAN: No, no, I didn't mention you. I didn't mention you.

Now if I can explain what my position on Iraq is, it's this. Now that we're there…

WOODRUFF: Could you make it brief so we could let…

DEAN: I'll try to make it as brief as I can.

Now that we're there, we can't pull out responsibly. Because if we do, there are more Al Qaida, I believe, in Iraq today than there were before the president went in. If they establish a foothold in Iraq, or if a fundamentalist Shiite regime comes in, allied with Iran, that is a real security danger to the United States, when one did not exist before when Saddam Hussein was running the place.

WOODRUFF: Five seconds. We have five seconds, literally.

KUCINICH: All immigrants ought to have the right to be able to gain amnesty, legalization, be protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, just as all workers in this country ought to be protected that way.