The nine contenders debating at the University of South Carolina late Saturday ranged from pacifist Representative Dennis Kucinich to moderately hawkish Senator Joe Lieberman.

The debate afforded all nine candidates the chance to gain wider recognition in a conservative southern state where the vast majority of voters strongly supported the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Taking part in the debate were Senators Bob Graham of Florida, John Edwards of North Carolina, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Lieberman of Connecticut; former Vermont governor Howard Dean; US Representatives Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Kucinich of Ohio; former Illinois senator Carol Moseley-Braun; and the Reverend Al Sharpton, a political activist from New York.

Kerry defended his view that Saddam had to be ousted.

"I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity," the Massachusetts senator said, "but ... when the president made the decision, I supported him and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

In the last few weeks, Kerry has clashed with former Vermont governor Dean on the war issue, and they did so again at Saturday's debate.

"I'm delighted to see Saddam Hussein gone ... but I think this was the wrong war at the wrong time because we have set a new policy of preventive war in this country," said Dean, who has gained stature among Americans who opposed the war because of his stance on the issue.

"Sooner or later we're going to see another country copy the United States, and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with the fact that there may well be a Shia fundamentalist regime set up in Iraq which will be a greater danger to the United States than Iraq is," Dean said.

Like Kerry, Missouri congressman Gephardt said he had hoped President George W. Bush would have opted for a diplomatic solution, but ultimately supported his action to oust Saddam.

"I wish (the president) would have gotten the UN finally with us," Gephardt said.

But, he added, "I'm convinced and I think everybody is convinced that these weapons were there and they could have found their way into the hands of terrorists and found their way into the United States, and that's what we had to stop."

Lieberman said he stood four-square with Bush in his decision to oust the Iraqi dictator.

"We gave him 12 years and tried everything short of war to get him to keep the promises he made to disarm at the end of the Gulf War. We did the right thing in fighting this fight, and the American people will be safer as a result of it," he said.

Sharpton said the war was a huge mistake.

"I'm convinced that we could have disarmed Hussein by working with the United Nations and going through the channels that we were embarked upon," he said.

Senator Graham of Florida said he voted in Congress against the war not because the resolution supporting the use of force was too extreme, but because it did not go far enough.

"I thought it was too weak because it did not contain a parallel authorization for the president to use force against Hezbollah, which has killed almost 300 Americans in the Middle East.

"It did not authorize us to use force against Islamic Jihad or Hamas to other violent terrorist groups who have pledged that they want to kill Americans. And they have demonstrated on September 11 the ability to kill Americans. I think those ought to be our first priorities," he said.

Kucinich and Braun, who have expressed opposition to the war during their campaigning, directed their comments late Saturday to the massive US wartime deployment, and rued the loss of those funds for domestic US programs.

"We already spent more than almost the rest of the world combined for the military," Kucinich said.

"We ought to talk about the cost of this war, and how we can rebuild America," said Braun.

"If we can have job fairs in Iraq, we ought to be able to have job fairs in South Carolina," she said.

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