Excerpts From Foreign Policy Exchange

Here are excerpts from the debate between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry. The moderator was Jim Lehrer of PBS. The excerpts are from a transcript provided by the Federal News Service.

Jim Lehrer: Do you believe you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States?

Sen. John F. Kerry: Yes, I do.... I have a better plan for homeland security. I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror, by strengthening our military, strengthening our intelligence, by going after the financing more authoritatively, by doing what we need to do to rebuild the alliances, by reaching out to the Muslim world, which the president has almost not done, and beginning to isolate the radical Islamic Muslims, not have them isolate the United States of America.

I know I can do a better job in Iraq, where I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies, something this president has not yet achieved, not yet been able to do to bring people to the table. We can do a better job of training the Iraqi forces to defend themselves, and I know that we can do a better job of preparing for elections.

President Bush: September the 11th changed how America must look at the world. And since that day, our nation has been on a multi-prong strategy to keep our country safer. We pursued Al Qaeda wherever Al Qaeda tries to hide. Seventy-five percent of known Al Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice. The rest of them know we’re after them....

We’re pursuing a strategy of freedom around the world, because I understand free nations will reject terror. Free nations will answer the hopes and aspirations of their people. Free nations will help us achieve the peace we all want.

Lehrer: Do you believe the election of Sen. Kerry on Nov. 2 would increase the chances of the U.S. being hit by another 9/11-type terrorist attack?

Bush: I don’t believe it’s going to happen. I believe I’m going to win, because the American people know I know how to lead. I’ve shown the American people I know how to lead. I have -- I understand everybody in this country doesn’t agree with the decisions that I’ve made. And I’ve made some tough decisions.

But people know where I stand. People out there listening know what I believe, and that’s how best it is to keep the peace.... In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work. It’s incredibly hard. You know why? Because an enemy realizes the stakes. The enemy understands a free Iraq will be a major defeat in their ideology of hatred. That’s why they’re fighting so vociferously.

Kerry: I believe in being strong and resolute and determined, and I will hunt down and kill the terrorists wherever they are. But we also have to be smart. And smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and taking it off to Iraq, where the 9/11 commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.

This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment, and judgment is what we look for in the president of the United States of America. I’m proud that important military figures are supporting me in this race.

Lehrer: Sen. Kerry. Colossal misjudgments. What colossal misjudgments, in your opinion, has President Bush made in these areas?

Kerry: First of all, he made the misjudgment of saying to America that he was going to build a true alliance, that he would exhaust the remedies of the United Nations and go through with the inspections. In fact, he first didn’t even want to do that. And it wasn’t until former Secretary of State Jim Baker and Gen. [Brent] Scowcroft and others pushed publicly and said, “You’ve got to go to the U.N.,” that the president finally changed his mind -- his campaign has a word for that -- and went to the United Nations.

Now, once there, we could have continued those inspections. We had Saddam Hussein trapped.

He also promised America that he would go to war as a last resort. Those words mean something to me, as somebody who’s been in combat: last resort. You’ve got to be able to look in the eyes of families and say to those parents, “I tried to do everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter.” I don’t believe the United States did that. And we pushed our allies aside....

The president moved the troops so he’s got 10 times the number of troops in Iraq than he has in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is. Does that mean that Saddam Hussein was 10 times more important than

Bush: My opponent looked at the same intelligence I looked at and declared, in 2002, that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat. He also said, in December of 2003, that anyone who doubts that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein does not have the judgment to be president. I agree with him. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

I was hoping diplomacy would work. I understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into harm’s way. It’s the hardest decision a president makes. So I went to the United Nations. I didn’t need anybody to tell me to go to the United Nations, I decided to go there myself. And I went there hoping that once and for all the free world would act in concert to get Saddam Hussein to listen to our demands. They passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. I believe when an international body speaks it must mean what it says. But Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming. Why should he? He had 16 other resolutions and nothing took place.

As a matter of fact -- my opponent talks about inspectors. The facts are that he was systematically deceiving the inspectors. That wasn’t going to work.

Lehrer: As president, what would you do specifically, in addition to or differently, to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing?

Kerry: First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you’ve got $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq and the president is cutting the COPS program in America? What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open fire houses in Iraq, but we’re shutting fire houses, who are the first responders here in America? ...

This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren’t my values. I believe in protecting America first. And long before President Bush and I get a tax cut -- and that’s who gets it -- long before we do, I’m going to invest in homeland security, and I’m going to make sure we’re not cutting COPS programs in America, and we’re fully staffed at our firehouses, and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants....

And there’s an enormous undone job to protect the loose nuclear materials in the world that are able to get to terrorists. That’s a whole other subject.

Bush: My administration has tripled the amount of money we’re spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year. My administration worked with the Congress to create the Department of Homeland Security so we could better coordinate our borders and ports.

We’ve got a thousand extra Border Patrol on the southern border; more than a thousand on the northern border. We’re modernizing our borders. We spent $3.1 billion for fire and police -- $3.1 billion. No, we’re doing our duty to provide the funding. But the best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense. You know, we have to be right 100% of the time, and the enemy only has to be right once to hurt us.

Lehrer: What criteria would you use to determine when to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq?

Bush: The best indication about when we can bring our troops home -- which I really want to do, but I don’t want to do so for the sake of bringing them home; I want to do so because we’ve achieved an objective -- is to -- is to see the Iraqis perform, is to see the Iraqis step up and take responsibility. And so the answer to your question is when our generals on the ground and [U.S.] Ambassador [to Iraq John] Negroponte tells me that Iraq is ready to defend herself from these terrorists, that elections will have been held by then, that there’s stability, and that they’re on their way to, you know, a nation of -- of -- that’s free, that’s when.

Kerry: My message to the troops is also thank you for what they’re doing, but it’s also: Help is on the way. I believe those troops deserve better than what they are getting today.... Almost every step of the way, our troops have been left on these extraordinarily difficult missions. I know what it’s like to go out on one of those missions where you don’t know what’s around the corner. And I believe our troops need other allies helping. I’m going to hold that summit. I will bring fresh credibility, a new start, and we will get the job done right.

Bush: My opponent says that help is on the way. But what kind of message does it say to our troops in harm’s way -- “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time”? That’s not a message a commander in chief gives. Or this is “a great diversion.”

As well, help is on the way, but it’s certainly hard to tell it when he voted against the $87-billion supplemental to provide equipment for our troops, and then said he actually did vote for it before he voted against it. That’s not what a commander in chief does when you’re trying to lead troops.

Kerry: Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?

Lehrer: Sen. Kerry ... you spoke to Congress in 1971 after you came back from Vietnam, and you said, quote, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Are Americans now dying in Iraq for a mistake?

Kerry: No. And they don’t have to, providing we have the leadership that we put -- that I’m offering. I believe that we -- we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that. And from the beginning -- I did vote to give the authority, because I thought Saddam Hussein was a threat, and I did accept that intelligence. But I also laid out a very strict series of things we needed to do in order to proceed from a position of strength. And the president in fact promised them. He went to Cincinnati, and he gave a speech in which he said: “We will plan carefully. We will proceed cautiously. We will not make war inevitable. We will go with our allies.” He didn’t do any of those things....

This president hasn’t even held the kind of statesmanlike summits that pull people together and get them to invest in those stakes. In fact, he’s done the opposite. He pushed them away. When the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, offered the United Nations, he said, “No, no, we’ll go do this alone.” To save for Halliburton the spoils of the war, they actually issued a memorandum from the Defense Department saying, “If you weren’t with us in the war, don’t bother applying for any construction.” That’s not a way to invite people.

Bush: That -- that’s totally absurd. Of course the U.N. was invited in. And we support the U.N. efforts there. They pulled out after [U.N. representative] Sergio de Mello got killed, but they’re now back in helping with elections. My opponent said we didn’t have any allies in this war? What’s he say to [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair? What’s he say to [President] Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland? I mean, you can’t expect to build an alliance when you denigrate the contributions of those who are serving side by side with American troops in Iraq. Plus, he says the cornerstone of his plan to succeed in Iraq is to call upon nations to serve.

So what’s the message going to be? Please join us in Iraq for a grand diversion? Join us for a war that is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time? I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time.... And finally, he says we ought to have a summit. Well, there are summits being held.

Lehrer: Mr. President ... you have said there was a, quote, “miscalculation” of what the conditions would be in postwar Iraq. What was the miscalculation? And how did it happen?

Bush: No, what I said was that, because we achieved such a rapid victory, more of the Saddam loyalists were around. In other words, we thought we’d whip more of them going in. But because Tommy Franks did such a great job in planning the operations, we moved rapidly. And a lot of the Baathists and Saddam loyalists laid down their arms and disappeared.

I thought we would -- they would stay and fight. But they didn’t. And now we’re fighting them now.... We’ve got a plan in place. The plan says there will be elections in January, and there will be. The plan says we’ll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are.... Now as I just told you, there’s going to be a summit of the Arab nations. Japan will be hosting a summit. We’re making progress. It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy.

Kerry: What I think troubles a lot of people in our country is that the president has just sort of described one kind of mistake, but what he has said is that even knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction, even knowing there was no imminent threat, even knowing there was no connection of Al Qaeda, he would still have done everything the same way. Those are his words.

Now I would not. So what I’m trying to do is just talk the truth to the American people and to the world. The truth is what good policy is based on. It’s what leadership is based on.

Lehrer: Sen. Kerry ... you’ve just -- you have repeatedly accused President Bush -- not here tonight, but elsewhere before -- of not telling the truth about Iraq, essentially of lying to the American people about Iraq. Give us some examples of what you consider to be his not telling the truth.

Kerry: Well, I’ve never, ever used the harshest word, as you did just then, and I try not to. I’ve been -- but I’ll nevertheless tell you that I think he has not been candid with the American people, and I’ll tell you exactly how.

First of all, we all know that in his State of the Union message he told Congress about nuclear materials that didn’t exist. We know that he promised America that he was going to build this coalition. I just described the coalition. It is not the kind of coalition we were described when we were talking about voting for this. The president said he would exhaust the remedies of the United Nation[s] and go through that full process. He didn’t. He cut it off sort of arbitrarily. And we know that there were further diplomatics under -- efforts underway. They just decided the time for diplomacy is over, and rushed to war without planning for what happens afterwards....

I believe that it is important to tell the truth to the American people. I’ve worked with those leaders the president talks about. I’ve worked with them for 20 years, for longer than this president. And I know what many of them say today and I know how to bring them back to the table. And I believe that a fresh start, new credibility, a president who can understand what we have to do to reach out to the Muslim world to make it clear that this is not -- you know, Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq in order to go out to people and say the -- American has declared war on Islam.

Bush: My opponent just said something amazing. He said Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq as an excuse to spread hatred for America. Osama bin Laden isn’t going to determine how we defend ourselves. Osama bin Laden doesn’t get to decide.

The American people decide. I decided. The right action was in Iraq. My opponent calls it a mistake. It wasn’t a mistake. He said I misled on Iraq. I don’t think he was misleading when he called Iraq a great threat in the fall of 2002. I don’t think he was misleading when he said that it was right to disarm Iraq in the spring of 2003. I don’t think he misled you when he said that, you know, if you -- anyone who doubted whether the world was better off without Saddam Hussein in power didn’t have the judgment to be president. I don’t think he was misleading.

I think what is misleading is to say you can lead and succeed in Iraq if you keep changing your positions on this war. And he has. As the politics change, his positions change. And that’s not how a commander-in-chief acts.

Kerry: I wasn’t misleading when I said he was a threat. Nor was I misleading on the day that the president decided to go to war when I said that he had made a mistake in not building strong alliances, and that I would have preferred that he did more diplomacy.

I’ve had one position, one consistent position: that Saddam Hussein was a threat; there was a right way to disarm him, and a wrong way. And the president chose the wrong way.

Bush: The only thing consistent about my opponent’s position is that he’s been inconsistent. He changes positions. And you cannot change positions in this war on terror if you expect to win. And I expect to win. It’s necessary we win. We’re being challenged like never before, and we have a duty to our country and to future generations of America to achieve a free Iraq, a free Afghanistan, and to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.

Lehrer: Has the war in Iraq been worth the cost in American lives, 10,052 -- I mean, 1,052 as of today?

Bush: Now every life’s precious. Every life matters. You know, my hardest -- the hardest part of the job is to know that I committed the troops in harm’s way and then do the best I can to provide comfort for the loved ones who lost a son or a daughter or a husband and wife....

I think it’s worth it because I think -- I know in the long term a free Iraq, a free Afghanistan will set such a powerful example in a part of the world that’s desperate for freedom. They will help change the world, that we can look back and say we did our duty.

Kerry: I understand what the president is talking about because I know what it means to lose people in combat. And the question, is it worth the cost, reminds me of my own thinking when I came back from fighting in that war. And it reminds me that it is vital for us not to confuse the war, ever, with the warriors. That happened before. And that’s one of the reasons why I believe I can get this job done: because I am determined for those soldiers and for those families, for those kids who put their lives on the line. That is noble. That’s the most noble thing that anybody can do. And I want to make sure the outcome honors that nobility.

Lehrer: Can you give us specifics in terms of a scenario, a timeline, et cetera, for ending U.S. -- major U.S. military involvement in Iraq?

Kerry: The timeline that I’ve set out -- and again, I want to correct the president because he’s misled again this evening on what I’ve said.

I didn’t say I would bring troops out in six months, I said if we do the things that I’ve set out and we are successful, we could begin to draw the troops down in six months. And I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn’t have long-term designs on it....

I will make a flat statement. The United States of America has no long-term designs on staying in Iraq. And our goal, in my administration, would be to get all of the troops out of there with the minimal amount you need for training and logistics, as we do in some other countries in the world after a war, to be able to sustain the peace

Bush: There’s a hundred thousand troops trained, police, guard, special units, border patrol. There’s going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year. Yeah, we’re getting the job done. It’s hard work. Everybody knows it’s hard work, because there’s a determined enemy that’s trying to defeat us....

The way to make sure that we succeed is to send consistent, sound messages to the Iraqi people that when we give our word, we will keep our word, that we stand with you, that we believe you want to be free.

And I do. I believe that -- ah -- that 25 million people, the vast majority, long to -- long to have elections. I reject this notion -- and I’m not suggesting that my opponent says this, but I reject the notion that some say that if you’re Muslim, you can’t be free, you don’t desire freedom. I disagree. Strongly disagree with that.

Lehrer: Mr. President. Do you believe that diplomacy and sanctions can resolve the nuclear problems with North Korea and Iran, taking them in any order you would like?

Bush: North Korea, first. I do. Let me say, I certainly hope so.

Ah -- before I, ah, was sworn in, the policy of this government was to have bilateral negotiations with North Korea. And we -- ah -- signed an agreement with North Korea that my administration found out that, ah, was not, ah, being honored by the North Koreans. And so I decided that a better way to approach the issue was to get other nations involved -- just besides us....

On Iran, I hope we can do the same thing; continue to work with the world to convince the Iranian mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. We’ve worked very closely with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain, who have been the -- the folks delivering the message to the mullahs that if you expect to be part of the world of nations, get rid of your nuclear programs. The [International Atomic Energy Agency] is involved. There’s a special protocol recently been passed that allows for instant inspections. I hope we can do it, and we’ve got a good strategy.

Kerry: With respect to Iran, the British, French and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort -- without the United States, regrettably -- to begin to try to move to [curb] the nuclear possibilities in Iran. I believe we could have done better. I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren’t willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing.

With respect to North Korea, the real story. We had inspectors and television cameras in the nuclear reactor in North Korea. [Defense] Secretary Bill Perry negotiated that under President Clinton. And we knew where the fuel rods were, and we knew the limits on their nuclear power. Colin Powell, our secretary of State, announced one day that we were going to continue the dialogue and work with the North Koreans. The president reversed him publicly while the president of South Korea was here, and the president of South Korea went back to South Korea, bewildered and embarrassed, because it went against his policy. And for two years, this administration didn’t talk at all to North Korea. While they didn’t talk at all, the fuel rods came out, the inspectors were kicked out, the television cameras were kicked out, and today there are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea. That happened on this president’s watch.

Now that, I think, is one of the most serious sort of reversals or mixed messages that you could possible send.

Lehrer: President Bush. There are clearly, as we have heard, major policy differences between the two of you. Are there also underlying character issues that you believe -- that you believe -- are serious enough to deny Sen. Kerry the job as commander in chief of the United States?

Bush: Hooh! That’s a loaded question.

First of all, I -- I admire ... Sen. Kerry’s service to our country. I admire the fact that he is a great dad....

My concerns about the senator is that, in the course of this campaign I’ve been listening very carefully to what he says, and he changes positions on the war on Iraq. It’s a -- changes positions on something as fundamental as what you believe in your core, in your heart of hearts is right -- in Iraq. You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens. And that’s my biggest concern about my opponent. Admire his service, but I -- I’m -- I just know how this world works. And that in the councils of government there must be certainty from the U.S. president.

Kerry: Well, first of all, I appreciate enormously the personal comments the president just made, and I share them with him. I think only if you’ve -- if you’re doing this, and he’s done it more than I have in terms of the presidency, can you begin to get a sense of what it means to your families, and it’s tough....

But we do have differences. I’m not going to talk about a difference of character. I don’t think that’s my job or my business. But let me talk about something that the president just sort of finished up with. Maybe someone would call it a character trait, maybe somebody wouldn’t.

But this issue of certainty. It’s one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong. It’s another to be certain and be right, or to be certain and be moving in the right direction, or be certain about a principle and then learn new facts and take those new facts and put them to use in order to change and get your policy right.

What I worry about with the president is that he’s not acknowledging what’s on the ground, that he’s not acknowledging the realities in North Korea, he’s not acknowledging the truth of the science of stem cell research or of global warming and other issues. And certainty sometimes can get you in trouble.