Kerry Says Bush Has Not Acted Quickly Enough on Terrorism Defenses
The New York Times
August 3, 2004
THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Aug. 2 - Senator John Kerry accused
President Bush on Monday of dragging his feet in bolstering the nation's defenses
against terrorism and said that he should call a special session
of Congress to adopt the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.
"We cannot afford reluctance in the protection of our country,"
Mr. Kerry said after Mr. Bush announced that he planned to establish a director of
national intelligence and a national counterterrorism center,
one day after reports of threats against financial centers in New York, Newark and
Washington.
Senator Kerry also accused the president of "encouraging the
recruitment of terrorists" by alienating moderates in the Muslim world, in part
through his handling of Iraq - prompting Mr. Bush to retort from the
Rose Garden that his opponent showed "a fundamental misunderstanding of
the war on terror."
The televised back-and-forth between the Democratic presidential nominee
and the incumbent president overshadowed Mr. Kerry's campaign trip
through swing states for a second straight day.
"If the president had a sense of urgency about this director of
intelligence and about the needs to strengthen America, he would call the Congress
back and get the job done now," Mr. Kerry told reporters at a campaign
stop here. "That's what we need to do. That's the urgency that exists in
order to make America as safe as possible.''
"The terror alert yesterday just underscores that if we're being serious
about this, we have to move on every possible option to make our nation as
safe as possible," he added. "The time to act is now, not later."
Mr. Kerry said the administration had resisted making needed
improvements in the intelligence system.
"We have a commission that was stonewalled, that people didn't
want to even put into existence, that you had to struggle to empower, that finally
has come up with recommendations, many of which I've made over
the course of the last few years," Mr. Kerry said. "We need leadership, not
followship."
Mr. Kerry also ridiculed Mr. Bush for a new line in his stump speech.
"They said, when it comes to fighting the threats of the world, and making
America safer and promoting the peace, 'we're turning the corner,' "
Mr. Kerry said outside a Grand Rapids fire station. "Saying that we turned the
corner doesn't make it so, just like saying 'mission accomplished' doesn't make it so."
And a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Kerry, James P. Rubin, said,
"Why did President Bush flip-flop" on the national intelligence director's post, using
a term the Bush-Cheney campaign has tried to affix to Mr. Kerry.
"First he was against it; now he's for it," Mr. Rubin said.
"Does that sound familiar?"
A Bush campaign spokesman, Steve Schmidt, responded,
"Facing no bounce in the polls, John Kerry threw away any pretense of a positive
campaign today with a prolonged dawn-to-dusk personal attack on the president."
Mr. Kerry, who has argued for months that Mr. Bush's post-Sept. 11
conduct of foreign policy has made the United States less safe, also shifted his
line of attack.
"The question we ought to be asking ourselves is not,
'Are we safer than we were on Sept. 11?' " he said. "That's an easy one. We walk into an
airport, there are screeners where there weren't screeners.
We've got some air marshals where there weren't air marshals. Sure, we can say
we're safer.
"The question is, 'Are we as safe as we ought to be,
given the options that were available to us?' " he continued.
"And the answer is no, and we
should be, and I will make us as safe as we ought to be."
Mr. Kerry also said repeatedly, starting in a morning interview
on CNN, that he believed that the administration was encouraging the recruitment
of terrorists through policies that "have resulted in an increase
of animosity and anger" at the United States and by failing to reach out to
moderates in the Muslim world.
He said Islamic religious schools that are believed to be breeding
grounds for terrorists "are using our actions as a means of recruitment." He cited
a new book by a senior C.I.A. officer warning that the invasion of Iraq
only played into Al Qaeda's hands.
Told of Mr. Kerry's remarks, Mr. Bush said it represented "a fundamental
misunderstanding of the war on terror." He added: "It is a ridiculous
notion to assert that because the United States is on the offense,
more people want to hurt us. We're on the offense because people do want to
hurt us."
Moments after Mr. Bush was through, Mr. Kerry arranged his own news
conference, where he said that when it came to fighting terrorism,
"obviously I'm on the offense," but that the administration was ignoring
nonmilitary approaches to fighting terrorism.
Later, at a boisterous rally in an overflowing, windblown plaza
in downtown Grand Rapids, Mr. Kerry told thousands
of Michiganders that he would "fight a more effective, smarter,
war on terror that makes our nation safer" by cooperating
more with other governments.
"I can do it because I understand, No. 1, yes, you have to take
it to the terrorists - of course you do," he said. "You've got to know who they are,
you've got to know where they are, you've got to be able to go get
them before they get us. But to do that, you've got to have the best intelligence in
the world, and to have the best intelligence in the world, you've got
to have the best cooperation with our countries you've ever had.''
"This administration doesn't know how to do that. I do," he thundered.
"I understand that working with other countries is not a sign of weakness, it
is a sign of strength."
Mr. Kerry also, describing his intentions in Iraq, appeared
to shift his emphasis from fixing what he says has been done wrong in that country to
withdrawing American troops as soon as possible, though the means
is the same: working with allies, involving more countries and reducing the
demand for American troops.
"I know what we need to do now in Iraq; it's what we should've
done in the first place," he said at the rally. "The fact is, it will take new leadership,
a fresh start, a new president with credibility to bring people to the
table and bring our troops home. That's what we need to do."
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