Kerry: Bush Undermined War on Terror

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry accused President Bush today of undermining the war on terrorism by shifting focus from Al Qaeda to Iraq, leveling one of his most biting foreign policy attacks of the campaign while unveiling a plan of his own that he said would make the world safer.

Meanwhile, the president, campaigning in southern Wisconsin, suggested that Kerry’s criticism of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made the senator unfit for a job that requires helping Iraq transform into a peaceful democracy.

“You can’t lead this country if your ally in Iraq feels like we question his credibility,” Bush told thousands of supporters in Janesville, Wis. Instead, the president said, “the message (to the Iraqis) ought to be loud and clear: we’re staying with you if you do the hard work.”

Six days before the first presidential debate, Democratic strategists feel the Massachusetts senator has finally found his footing in attacking the president’s most potent strength: national security.

“Let me tell you the truth, which is what America deserves: The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy, Al Qaeda, which killed more than 3,000 people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today,” Kerry said to students and faculty at Temple University. “And there’s just no question about it; the president’s misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq will make the war on terror harder to win.

“Iraq is now what it was not before the war: a haven for terrorists,” Kerry added. “George Bush made Saddam Hussein the priority. I would have made Osama bin Laden the priority.”

Kerry’s words underscored efforts by his campaign to portray the Massachusetts senator as tough and resolute on an issue that was once considered his biggest asset but that he has struggled to master amid months of blistering attacks by the White House for what Republicans say are shifting stances on Iraq.

And it was an effort to carefully differentiate Iraq from the larger war on terrorism — countering efforts by the White House to portray them as one in the same.

Kerry offered a seven-point plan that he said would refocus the effort to curb terror: He pledged to modernize and expand the military, hunt for nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union, spend billions to tighten security for borders, chemical plants, ports and trains, and target foreign aid to failing states to prevent them from fomenting and harboring terrorists.

In separate campaign stops, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney defended the White House’s national defense policy and chided Kerry’s more aggressive tone as a sign of a candidate in trouble.

Vice President Dick Cheney offered a sharp rebuttal to Kerry’s speech, saying at a fairground rally in Warrenton, Mo. that Kerry’s “sagging poll numbers have led him to think he has to go on the attack.”

“He gave a speech assailing the president for suggesting that Iraq was not a home for terrorists before America deposed Saddam,” the vice president said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Saddam himself is a terrorist. He provided safe haven for terrorists over the years. He was making $25,000 payments to the families of suicide bombers, and he had a relationship with Al Qaeda, and Iraq for years was carried by our State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.”

The president further lambasted Kerry for calling the Iraq war the “wrong war in the wrong place.”

“Earlier this week, my opponent said he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today. I strongly disagree,” Bush said. “It’s tough work, no question about it. We’ve done tough work before. But if Saddam Hussein were in power, our security would be threatened. If Saddam Hussein were in power, there would still be mass graves and torture chambers in Iraq. If Saddam Hussein were in power, the world would be better off-the world would be worse off, not better off.”

Bush also launched into a spirited of his now-familiar defense of the Iraq war, calling it a central front in the war on terrorism.

“We must whip the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to face them here at home...I understand the stakes for America.”

Also today, Kerry unveiled a new television commercial that criticizes Bush’s assessment of conditions in Iraq. The 30-second spot quotes a Bush statement from a Thursday press conference: “I saw a poll that said the ‘right track/wrong track’ in Iraq was better than here America.”

A narrator in the Kerry ad jumps in: “The right track? Americans are being kidnapped, held hostage, even beheaded. Over a thousand American soldiers have died. And George Bush has no plan to get us out of Iraq. John Kerry does. The Kerry solution: Allies share the burden. Train Iraqis to protect themselves. John Kerry. A new direction in Iraq.”

In Milwaukee, the Democratic National Committee began airing a new commercial critical of Bush’s record on education reform.

The Bush campaign, meantime, was expanding the airtime for his “windsurfing” ad, announced earlier this week, which mocks Kerry as a candidate who tacks with the political winds on Iraq. It popped up today in Charleston, W.Va., and other key markets.

Wallsten reported from Philadelphia and Chen from Janesville, Wis. Times Staff Writer James Gerstenzang contributed from Warrenton, Mo..