Bush Camp Lashes Out at Kerry's Missing a Vote on Iraq
By CARL HULSE - NYT
Senator John Kerry avoided a tricky situation on Wednesday when he did not vote on a proposal to add $25 billion for the war in Iraq to a Pentagon measure, but the Bush campaign is not about to let him off the hook.
Bush strategists, who have ridiculed Mr. Kerry's earlier assertion that he voted for $87 billion in Iraq spending before he voted against it, ripped into the Democratic presidential contender again today on the issue.
"John Kerry is giving a speech today on modernizing our military less than 24 hours after he skipped a vote on $25 billion in funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan," President Bush's campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, said. "John Kerry's decision to spend yesterday delivering an attack speech rather than returning to the Senate to support the troops shows his purely political approach to foreign policy."
Mr. Racicot was referring to Mr. Kerry's speech at the Truman Library in Missouri today, where he criticized the Bush administration for stretching the military too thin and called for substantial troop increases of 40,000 active-duty personnel.
"Strong leadership demands more than the willingness to use force," Mr. Kerry said. "It means directing the use of the right tools at the right time for the right purpose and the right cause."
Mr. Kerry, who was campaigning out of town on Wednesday, when the Senate vote was taken, had said he would support the $25 billion, but skipping the Senate action let him avoid a vote that could later be portrayed as a show of support for administration policy in Iraq. And if he had chosen to vote against the money, that could have been cast by opponents as undercutting the troops in the field.
The measure passed unanimously and was even backed by such strong opponents of the war as Senators Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats.
But Mr. Kerry will get a couple of more chances to weigh in — the Senate will have to vote on the overall bill containing the money at least two more times in the weeks ahead. |
