Kerry Details Strategy to Fight Terror

Democratic presidential hopeful John F. Kerry on Thursday began outlining his strategy for protecting the nation from terrorist attacks, saying President Bush had “made America less safe than we should be in a dangerous world.”

In a speech that sought to define contrasting views with Bush on national security, Kerry renewed his calls for stronger ties to allied nations, modernization of the military and reduced reliance on foreign oil.

The presumptive Democratic nominee offered no specific differences with the president on plans to end the war in Iraq but instead stressed his accusation that Bush had undermined the nation’s goodwill with allies by sowing global fear and mistrust.

“Shredding alliances is not the way to win the war on terror or even to make America safer,” Kerry told a crowd of about 450 people at Seattle’s new opera house.

American leaders of past generations, he said, “understood that America drew its power not only from the might of weapons, but also from the trust and respect of nations around the globe.” He accused Bush and his administration of violating President Theodore Roosevelt’s call for the U.S. to speak “softly and carry a big stick.”

“In short, they have undermined the legacy of generations of American leadership, and that is what we must restore. And that is what I will restore.”

Kerry’s speech here opened an 11-day effort by the Massachusetts senator to promote his national security agenda and to illustrate a distinction between his worldview and that of the president. That push, after weeks of stressing domestic issues, comes at a time when polls show Bush’s popularity has dropped as events in Iraq have dominated the news, most recently the prison abuse scandal and the beheading of a U.S. contractor.

Polls also show that Americans still trust Bush more than Kerry on Iraq and terrorism, underscoring a central challenge for his campaign: to persuade voters that his national security credentials are at least as strong as the president’s.

“Kerry’s overwhelming, single strategic imperative is to convince voters that he’s ready and qualified to step in as commander in chief,” said Jim Jordan, a former Kerry campaign manager.

Kerry’s national security offensive was timed to coincide with high-profile events that spotlight the military: the dedication of the National World War II Memorial in Washington on Saturday, which Kerry will attend; Memorial Day and the 60th anniversary of D-day on June 6.

Kerry, who cites his record as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam almost daily, appeared with fellow veterans Thursday night at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., where he is scheduled to have breakfast today with reservists who recently returned from duty overseas.

Among the guests at Thursday’s speech in Seattle were former Sens. Max Cleland of Georgia and Gary Hart of Colorado, as well as his former crewmates from Vietnam.

Kerry said he would release plans within a week to modernize the military and stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. And he defined attempts by terrorists to get weapons of mass destruction as “the single gravest threat to our security.”

“As president, my No. 1 security goal will be to prevent the terrorists from gaining weapons of mass murder,” he said.

Citing Bush administration warnings that Al Qaeda could try to disrupt the U.S. presidential campaign with an attack like the deadly train bombings just before Spain’s national election, Kerry said America would “never be deterred in our exercise of democracy.”

“This is my message to terrorists: As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation’s power to bear on finding and crushing your networks,” he said. “We’ll use every resource of our power to destroy you.”

If an attack with a weapon of mass destruction ever seems imminent, he said, “As commander in chief, I will do whatever is necessary to stop it.”

In a conference call with reporters before the speech, Kerry foreign policy advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said those remarks were not meant to embrace Bush’s doctrine of launching preemptive attacks against states the U.S. views as a threat.

Berger, who was President Clinton’s national security advisor, said there was “a profound difference between elevating preemption to a defining strategic doctrine,” as Bush has, and “recognizing that no president is going to stand by, if he sees an immediate threat to the United States, and not take action.”

In the speech, Kerry also tied the terrorist threat to U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East. Pressing his case for investment in alternative fuels -- a frequent Kerry theme -- he said the U.S. “must never be forced into a box where we trade our values for oil.”

“If we are serious about energy independence, then we can finally be serious about confronting the failure of Saudi Arabia to do all that it can to stop financing and providing ideological support of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” Kerry said.

“We cannot continue this administration’s kid-glove approach to the supply and laundering of terrorist money.”

He went on to denounce “Saudi sponsorship of clerics who promote the ideology of Islamic terror.”

“To put it simply, we will not do business as usual with any country that does not demonstrate its full will to partner in this struggle,” he said.

On Iraq, Kerry alluded to Bush’s scheduled gatherings with foreign leaders in the weeks ahead.

“There will be speeches, handshakes, ceremonies, but will our allies promise to send troops to Iraq?” Kerry asked. “Will they dedicate substantially more funding for reconstruction there?

In response to Kerry’s remarks, the Bush campaign released statements questioning his capacity to protect national security. “John Kerry’s insistence on playing politics with the war on terror seems to have prevented him from offering any substantive policy ideas,” Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said in one statement.

Mehlman also argued that Kerry had taken contradictory positions on the war. For example, he said, Kerry said it was irresponsible to deny troops needed supplies but then voted against $87 billion in spending for the war effort.

Kerry had said that he voted for an alternative Democratic version of the $87-billion package that would have paid for war supplies by repealing tax cuts for the wealthy.