Kerry Sketches an Iraq Exit Plan

Within a first term as president, Sen. John F. Kerry thinks he could attract enough international help in Iraq to make it a “reasonable” goal to replace most U.S. troops stationed there with foreign forces, he told The Times in an interview.

“I will engage in the creation of a very different equation, very rapidly,” the Democratic presidential nominee said of troop deployment in Iraq.

The interview, conducted Sunday night during Kerry’s bus tour through the Midwest, continued the aggressive challenge to President Bush’s national security record that the Massachusetts senator and other Democrats offered at the party’s national convention last week.

Kerry flatly asserted that he was more qualified to conduct international diplomacy than Bush. He argued that the president was so committed “to rushing to the job of going to war” that Bush failed to sufficiently question the intelligence he received on Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion.

Discussing the new terrorism threats to financial institutions, Kerry said the administration had failed to exhibit enough urgency about strengthening the nation’s defenses.

Referring to Bush’s frequent characterization of himself as a “war president,” Kerry said Bush and his top officials “have not behaved like an administration at war in terms of their management of homeland security.”

On domestic issues, Kerry said he would not scale back his plan to expand access to healthcare even if the federal budget deficit grew. And he was less definitive about maintaining his pledge to halve the federal deficit over a first term.

“That’s a goal,” Kerry said. “It’s a goal we are going to try to achieve. But I have to see what the numbers are on Jan. 20 [inauguration day]. I am not going to dig myself a hole based on some ideological ... promise like the president did when he did his [tax cut] plan.”

In the interview, Kerry expanded on arguments he made in his nomination acceptance speech Thursday and a round of appearances on Sunday morning news programs. But he was vague on some key points. On his plan for Iraq, Kerry has drawn fire from Republicans for not providing more details since declaring in his acceptance speech, “I know what we have to do in Iraq.”

Asked if that statement referred to broad principles or specific actions, Kerry said, “All of the above.”

But while he offered clear indications of the broad diplomatic direction he would pursue to obtain more foreign financial and military help in Iraq, he said, “I’m not going to lay out every crossed ‘t’ or dotted ‘i’ of a negotiating process that is very complicated and depends to some degree on the good faith and persuasive power of the presidency itself.”

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Bush’s reelection campaign, said Kerry’s promises to increase foreign participation ignored the contributions being made by “more than 30 nations [that] stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, engaged in helping the Iraqis build a secure democratic future.”

Schmidt added: “John Kerry has constantly denigrated that coalition.... But he has not laid out one specific plan or proposal that would give anyone any reason to believe that his political assertions [of getting more help] are connected to reality.”

In the interview, Kerry said he would offer several tangible inducements to encourage European and Arab nations to do more to help secure and rebuild Iraq. Among those steps would be the appointment of a U.N. high commissioner to give the international community a greater say in the development of a permanent Iraqi government, granting other countries greater access to reconstruction contracts and the convening of an international conference “that brings leaders together for an immediate raising of the stakes of diplomacy.”

But beyond these specifics, Kerry repeatedly argued that the key to obtaining more assistance in Iraq was a change in the international climate that would become possible only with a new administration.

“What we need is a fresh start,” he said. “This president has poisoned the well of relationships in a way that has made it very difficult for leaders of some countries [to help], even if they were disposed to come to our side, because their populations are angry [and] upset.”

James P. Rubin, a senior Kerry foreign policy advisor, said the candidate had not held any discussions with foreign leaders about committing more troops. Rubin said Kerry based his prediction of significantly greater assistance partly on reports from other advisors, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But Rubin added, “No one is negotiating -- that would be wrong.”

Kerry said he believed other nations had failed to respond as much as they should to Iraq’s needs, and that he would challenge them with a “message of responsibility.” He also said he could exert such pressure more effectively than Bush by combining it with efforts to build more international cooperation on other issues.

“I’ve done this for a long time,” Kerry said. “I have negotiated personally with leaders of other countries.... And I believe I come to this table with greater experience and a greater sense of direction than George Bush.”

Asked how he would measure success in obtaining more international help, Kerry said he considered it “absolutely” possible that by the end of a first term, most of the foreign troops in Iraq would come from nations other than the U.S.

The U.S. has contributed about 140,000 of the roughly 160,000 troops now deployed in Iraq -- nearly 88%.

Kerry is bound to face questions on whether it is realistic to shift the military burden so dramatically toward foreign troops. “He has set the bar very high,” said one diplomat from a nation contributing forces in Iraq, who requested anonymity.

Kerry’s comments about his negotiating skills were among several indicating the Democrat thought that not only his ideas, but his approach to the presidency, would be superior to Bush’s. Kerry did not respond when directly asked to critique Bush’s style of leadership. But at several points, he suggested he did not think Bush had been sufficiently hands-on as president.

For instance, Kerry accused Bush of overlooking flaws in prewar Iraq intelligence. “The information that was on the president’s desk wasn’t even accurate, and some people knew that at the time,” he said. “And a president who wasn’t just rushing to the job of going to war would have taken the time to check on those sources, to make absolutely certain.”

Schmidt, the Bush campaign spokesman, said that charge ignored Kerry’s own claims, from as far back as 1998, that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein represented a threat to U.S. security. “This was John Kerry’s consistent position until he began to feel political pressure ... in the Democratic primaries,” Schmidt said.

Kerry argued that he would be more directly involved than Bush in the management of homeland security. “I know what it means to convene a meeting of chiefs of agencies and chiefs of police and set expectations and demand a plan for the protection of nuclear and chemical plants and implement it,” he said. “It hasn’t happened” under Bush.

Kerry also said his administration would be more open than Bush’s. He pledged to hold monthly news conferences. (Bush’s have been sporadic.) And although the Bush administration has fought in court to avoid disclosing records of meetings held by Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, Kerry said that as president, he would open some of the meetings his officials would conduct with outside groups.

Some government experts say such a move could mean that the real negotiations would occur elsewhere. But Kerry said he is committed to unprecedented transparency.

“No one is going to have to sue me to find out who we met with,” he said.