Kerry Rips Bush’s Handling of Iraq War

Launching a preemptive defense of his military credentials, Sen. John F. Kerry today pledged to do a better job protecting America from terrorism than President Bush and warned that the truth about the situation in Iraq is “beginning to catch up with him.”

Hours before Bush was expected to assail his challenger’s record on national defense in an address in New Jersey, the Democratic candidate lambasted the president for an “arrogant” approach to equipment shortages plaguing U.S. troops.

Kerry, who was planning on pounding the administration for the flu shot shortage during a day-long swing through Florida, quickly switched gears to capitalize on a report in today’s Washington Post that Army Lt. General Ricardo S. Sanchez complained last winter that a lack of supplies threatened the Army’s fighting capacity.

“The day after Gen. Sanchez wrote that letter, you know what George Bush went out and told the American people?” he asked hundreds of seniors assembled in a parking lot of a West Palm Beach retirement community for a morning rally. “He said our troops were properly equipped.”

“Despite the president’s arrogant boasting that he’s done everything right in Iraq and that he’s made no mistakes, the truth is beginning to come out and it’s beginning to catch up with him,” Kerry added, as the elderly audience clapped and cheered. “And on Nov. 2, it will catch up with him.”

The Bush campaign dismissed Kerry’s criticisms as a feint to distract from his own record on national security, saying he has repeatedly voted against weapons systems to keep the country safe.

“It is clear why John Kerry does not want to talk about his record,” campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said in a statement. “He has been on the wrong side of every national security issue for the past 20 years. John Kerry’s pre-9/11 world view is a risk America cannot afford to take.”

But Kerry argued that it is Bush who has proven to be risky prospect. Standing coatless on a stage set up outside the bungalows of Century Village under the hot Florida sun, the Democrat directly addressed his rival in challenging tones.

“Mr. President, your management or mismanagement of this war, your diversion from Al Qaeda and from Osama bin Laden, your shift of the troops to Iraq when there was nothing to do with Al Qaeda, nothing to do with 9/11, has made America less safe, not more secure,” he said. “And we need a president who knows how to make America secure.”

After dramatically scaling back his references to his time in Vietnam during the last two months, Kerry peppered his 30-minute speech with at least a half-dozen references to his military service, returning to a theme many Democrats said he relied on too heavily during the spring and summer.

“I’ll never send our soldiers into harm’s way without the equipment that they need, because I’ve been one of those soldiers and I know what that means,” he said. “And I will never be a commander in chief who just cavalierly, ideologically and arrogantly dismisses the advice of our best military commanders in the United States.”

Kerry ticked off a list of military commanders, administration officials and lawmakers who have acknowledged problems with the rationale for the invasion of Iraq and the handling of the post-war period.

“You know what this administration does?” he asked. “It rewards the people who make the mistakes, who miscalculate. It rewards the people who hide the truth and it fires the people who tells the truth.”

The Massachusetts senator also alluded to a recent report that a squad of reservists in Iraq refused an order to transport fuel because of failing equipment and a lack of security.

“Now we see troops struggling with the problem of being worried to go out on a patrol when they know they don’t have the equipment that they need, they know they don’t have the people with them that they need,” Kerry said. “Let me tell you something that I learned when I fought in Vietnam: listen to the troops and give the troops the equipment that they need.”

Kerry warned that in Bush’s speech, the president would “mislead America again about my record on defense and security.”