Former Democratic presidential hopeful Gary Hart on Thursday said President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq was a mistake and the United States faces tough choices in the continuing fight.

During a news conference at a Lawrence hotel, Hart said the U.S. should have continued the strategy of “permanent, international, coercive, intrusive inspections” of weapons in Iraq to “keep Saddam Hussein in a box.”

Now, he said, the military is stuck in a deepening battle with insurgents.

The result is that the United States is less safe against a terrorist attack because the war has stretched the military and siphoned thousands of national guard troops, he said. Hart, 67, was raised in Ottawa where he went by the name Gary Hartpence. He is a former senator from Colorado and twice ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was in town to kick off the Hall Center for the Humanities lecture series at Kansas University, and was scheduled to speak at the Lied Center and then moderate a discussion after the presidential debate.

On the war in Iraq, Hart said the U.S. must enlist the help of key European allies to secure and rebuild the country.

He said Bush can’t do that because he has snubbed those allies in the past.

Hart, an advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, said Democrats should have asked tougher questions when Bush requested congressional approval to go to war with Iraq.

Democrats should have forced the administration to reveal how long it expected to stay in Iraq, at what cost and the extent of expected casualties, he said.

Hart said the war in Iraq is an example of the kinds of conflicts the U.S. will face in the coming years, where political leaders will have to choose whether to root out enemies in urban settings — causing high civilian casualties — or back off and accept that insurgents will control certain areas.

“Welcome to the 21st century,” he said.

Hart also criticized Bush for failing to take seriously a 2001 report by a commission that Hart co-chaired on national security. That commission reported just months before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack that the U.S. would soon be hit by terrorists.

“I think it’s not totally accurate for the president to say no one told him,” he said.

Hart said he believes Kerry can defeat Bush but that he faces an uphill struggle.

“It’s very hard to defeat an incumbent,” he said, especially when the nation is “in peril.”