Washington ? Senate Democrats on Tuesday attacked the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as U.S. secretary of state, arguing in a daylong debate that she had misled Congress and the public on the need for war against Iraq and threatening to tarnish her expected approval.

Rice, who has been President Bush’s White House national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.

“I don’t like impugning anyone’s integrity, but I really don’t like being lied to,” Dayton said. “Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally.”

Rice is expected to win confirmation today. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that Rice would have “an overwhelming majority” of votes.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., cautioned against “inflammatory rhetoric that is designed merely to create partisan advantage or to settle partisan scores.”

Rice would succeed Colin Powell, who often found himself on the outside looking in with Bush’s close circle of war and national security advisers.

By contrast, Rice is a trusted Bush loyalist. As a principal architect of the Iraq invasion and the administration’s war on terrorism, she shares blame for overstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Democrats said.

“My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration’s lies must stop now,” Dayton said in opposing Rice’s nomination on the Senate floor.

Politicians rarely use the word “lie,” preferring some of the milder terms other Democrats used Tuesday.

“There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did and for the false reasons we were given,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Rice is not directly responsible for intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war that overestimated Saddam’s nuclear capability, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. “But she is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her,” Levin said.

Republicans who took the floor to endorse Rice included Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who has been a sometime critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.

“Dr. Rice has the intelligence, the integrity and the experience for this job. She has the president’s confidence,” Hagel said.