Kerry Attacks Bush's Handling of Campaign Against Terror
___________________
By MARIA NEWMAN
The New York Times
September 24, 2004
Senator John Kerry launched a sharp attack on President Bush's handling of the campaign against terror today, asserting that terror attacks in the world were on the rise and that the Bush administration was "in confusion" about how to respond.
"We hear the president, the commander in chief, proclaiming one day that this war can't be won, and then saying something different the next day," Mr. Kerry said in Philadelphia. "And we hear the secretary of defense himself wondering whether the radicals are recruiting, training, and deploying more terrorists than we are capturing or killing."
He continued hammering home a theme from the last few days that the president is "living in a fantasy world of spin" when he puts a good face on the progress in the war on Iraq as some senior advisers and fellow Republicans, privately and publicly, express concern over the growing violence there.
In his appearance before an audience at Temple University, Mr. Kerry presented a detailed plan for how he would deal with terrorism as president, saying, "My priority will be to find and capture or kill the terrorists before they get us."
Mr. Kerry has grown more aggressive in the last few days about taking on Mr. Bush on Iraq and terrorism, which voters have said are the foremost issues as the campaign moves toward it final phase.
"With all of these misjudgments, all the miscalculations and all the mistakes, the president still says he wouldn't do anything different," Mr. Kerry said. "I would. I will make very different choices in the war on terrorism."
His remarks came a day the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, paid Washington a visit, which served to reinforce the starkly differing views of the Bush and Kerry campaigns on the situation in Iraq.
On Thursday, President Bush said, "You can understand it's tough and still be optimistic," and Mr. Allawi vowed that elections would be held in January even though "they may not be perfect" because of the rising violence in parts of Iraq.
Senator Kerry responded by saying that the prime minister was contradicting himself, alternately saying that terrorists were pouring into the country and that they were on the defensive.
Today, Vice President Dick Cheney said Mr. Kerry would be a weak opponent to terrorists, saying Mr. Kerry "has given every indication of a lack of resolve and conviction to prevail" in Iraq, The Associated Press reported from Lafayette, La., where Mr. Cheney was campaigning.
Mr. Cheney also faulted Mr. Kerry's comments on Mr. Allawi, saying the Democratic candidate had been disrespectful to the Iraqi leader.
Earlier in the week, Mr. Kerry said the president had let the war in Iraq become a distraction from the fight against terrorism, and the senator offered up his prescription for how to disengage the United States without losing the war, in a speech that many supporters praised for its finally making clearer distinctions between himself and the president.
Today, Mr. Kerry set forth a detailed seven-point proposal for how he would fight terrorism, a plan that includes going after those who finance terrorist operations, including those in Saudi Arabia.
"I will do what President Bush has not: I will hold the Saudis accountable," Mr. Kerry said, in a discussion that drew a standing ovation and his loudest applause.
He said that since 9/11, there had been no prosecutions of terrorist financial backers in Saudi Arabia, and only a few in other places. Mr. Kerry vowed to work with American allies, with the World Bank and international financial institutions "to shut down the financial pipeline that keeps terrorism alive."
"And I will pursue a plan to make this nation energy independent of Mideast oil," he said. "I want an America that relies on our own innovation and ingenuity, not the Saudi Royal Family."
Mr. Kerry also said he would increase the number of troops in Iraq by 40,000, strengthen intelligence systems and shut down the supply route of deadly weapons to the terrorists from other countries. He further said he would beef up domestic security, including better protection at the nation's ports and more security in vulnerable areas like subways "so that what happened in Madrid doesn't happen here in the United States of America."
Mr. Kerry also said that any plan to fight terrorism had to go beyond just sending in American troops. He also said his plan included initiatives to keep terrorists from increasing their ranks and to promote the development of free and democratic societies in the Islamic world.
In order to keep the ranks of terrorists from growing, he said, Americans must become smarter about countering the efforts of Al Qaeda to win "the heart and soul of the Muslim world."
"We will win this war only if the terrorists lose that struggle," he said. "We will win when ordinary people from Nigeria to Egypt, to Pakistan, to Indonesia know that they have more to live for than to die for."
He said that many of the terrorists' recruits were coming from poor Muslim communities. Under his plan, the United States could use its economic power to help poor Muslim countries in exchange for "them living up to goals of social and economic progress."
"We have to win the war of ideas," he said, pointing out that more than 50 percent of the population in the Arab and Muslim world is under the age of 25.
"If all they get to do is go to radical Islamic madrassas and learn how to hate and learn how to strap themselves with explosives, we have a problem for years to come, my friends," he said. "New generations have to believe that there is more to life than salvation through martyrdom."
Lastly, Mr. Kerry said that the United States would have to work harder to win allies in its struggle against terrorism. "We will not succeed in destroying freedom's adversaries if we are divided from freedom's friends," he said.
"The terrorists certainly understand that," he said. "They're making a special effort to set off bombs in Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia. They want to keep other countries from standing with us in the war on terror. They know what the Bush administration has been so reluctant to admit — that we are weaker when we fight almost alone."
He said that the Bush administration had said that the United States must act alone because the Europeans "won't help us, no matter what."
"I have news for President Bush," Mr. Kerry said. "Just because you can't do it, doesn't mean it can't be done."
"I believe we can win the war on terror," he said.
nytimes.com |
