At a ceremony on Tuesday marking the one-year anniversary of the Iraqi attack on Pvt. Jessica Lynch's Army unit, the widow of a soldier who died in the fight blasted President Bush for "lying to America" to justify the Iraq war.

In bitter comments beside the grave of Army Specialist James Kiehl, widow Jill Kiehl accused Bush of fabricating reasons to launch the invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"The evidence that's starting to come out now feels like he (Bush) was misleading us," Kiehl said, holding the couple's 10-month-old son Nathaniel, born seven weeks after his father died.

"It's almost as though he had things fixed so it would look like he needed to go to war," she said.

James Kiehl, a 22-year-old computer engineer, was one of 11 members of the 507th Maintenance Company killed when their convoy took a wrong turn at Nassiriya in southern Iraq on March 23, 2003 and were attacked by Iraqi fighters.

Seven others were captured, including Lynch, who was held for nine days before U.S. troops rescued her from a hospital.

Several members of the unit, not including Lynch, attended the ceremony in Center Point, 35 miles northwest of San Antonio.

Jill Kiehl described herself as "bitter" about Bush's decision to declare war on Iraq.

"It's upsetting that he (Bush) would have lied to America to get what he wanted," Kiehl said.

"In a way, it's like he used people. That's how I feel. I think the reasons for going over there were bogus and misleading."

Bush justified the invasion on grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to Al Qaeda, the Islamic extremist group blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. So far, no such weapons have been found and little evidence of Al Qaeda connections has turned up.

© Copyright Reuters 2004

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