President Bush's drive to war was a politically motivated ``fraud'' and ``bankrupt policy'' that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are paying for in blood daily, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy charged yesterday.

``This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically,'' Kennedy said. ``This whole thing was a fraud.''

The Senate's liberal lion said Bush must be held accountable for the ``rush to war'' in the face of no ``imminent threat,'' skewering Bush with rhetoric unmatched in Congress or among the pack of Democrats running for president.

``This is a bankrupt policy and the American taxpayers are paying for it and the American soldiers are paying for it every day,'' Kennedy said in an interview.

He said Bush's kitchen cabinet in Texas invented the threat on the eve of an election year.

Republican New York Gov. George Pataki called Kennedy's comments ``reprehensible.''

``Anybody who has been to as many funerals as I have of Colorado soldiers who've died serving their country in Afghanistan and Iraq has to in fact find what Sen. Kennedy said today to be extremely disturbing and at significant variance with the facts,'' said Republican Colorado Gov. Bill Owens.

Kennedy's remarks, echoed - though with less fire - by Democrat Howard Dean campaigning in New Hampshire, marked a new verve by Democrats to undercut Bush's wartime popularity.

The comments came a day after Bush admitted there were no ties between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The admission followed weeks of denial by Bush administration officials that they inflated talk of Iraq's burgeoning nuclear threat and its access to weapons of mass destruction.

``We've had shifting explanations by the president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense,'' Kennedy said. ``The American people are entitled to a real explanation of what this war was really all about.''

The Massachusetts Democrat said there was ``no question'' the war was politically motivated, evidenced by Bush's new demand for $87 billion in bonus funding that is suddenly a top priority.

``This was not on the agenda going into the August recess and it was number one on the agenda after the August recess,'' Kennedy charged. ``There's no question this administration made a rush to war, that's a fact.''

Since Bush is spending more than $4 billion of taxpayer cash each month to fight the war, Kennedy said Americans deserve accounting.

`This thing is out of control, Americans want transparency - this is all taxpayer money,'' he said.

He said a recent Congressional Budget Office report showed only $2.5 billion of the $4 billion being spent each month can be accounted for, suggesting Bush is using it to bribe world leaders to now help his cause.

``My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops,'' he said.

Dean told a Londonderry, N.H. audience that Bush should be ashamed for letting Americans think Saddam and al Qaeda worked ``hand in glove'' on the 9/11 attacks.

Saddam, Dean said, ``was a horrible person but he was not a threat to the United States.''

The White House declined comment on the remarks.

But, appearing with other GOP governors at a Republican Governors Association meeting in Boston, Vermont Gov. James Douglas accused Kennedy of straying ``totally out of bounds.''

``To undermine or to impugn the motives of the president and all those who voted to do this and call it a political game or calculation I think is totally out of bounds, totally inappropriate,'' he said.

Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney noted that many in Congress, including presidential candidate John F. Kerry, voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq.

``I hope that we will not fall into the temptation to establish political policy or take political shots based on what we find out after the fact,'' Romney said.

Herald wire services contributed to this report