By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Rep. Ken Lucas said Monday that Saddam Hussein's capture does not change his feeling that Bush duped him and the nation about the war in Iraq.

"I'm elated he is captured," said Lucas via cell phone from Turkey, where he is on a weeklong trip to Europe and the Middle East with members of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"The capture of Saddam Hussein doesn't change my thoughts," he said.

"There were supposed to be weapons of mass destruction. It appears there are none. ... I voted for (the war) because we were in imminent danger. It appears we were not in imminent danger."

A conservative Democrat who represents Northern Kentucky in the U.S. House, Lucas, like the rest of the Tristate delegation, voted last year to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

Kentucky's two Republican senators said Sunday the capture should help quiet questions about the war.

"That was the whole reason for the war - to get Saddam Hussein. And now we've got him," Sen. Mitch McConnell said.

"I think everybody wondered if we ever were going to catch him, and now we have," Sen. Jim Bunning said.

The 71-year-old Lucas, who is retiring from Congress after this term, said the capture is a big plus for Bush's re-election and probably will hurt Democratic front-runner Howard Dean, who opposed the war.

Lucas was in the home of the American ambassador to Israel when he heard the news about an hour before it broke on CNN.

But Lucas couldn't get other vital news he was seeking Sunday: He had to ask a reporter who won the Bengals-49ers game Sunday.

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E-mail cweiser@gns.gannett.com