Kerry accuses Bush of 'stubborn incompetence'
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<<...NEW YORK - Sen. John Kerry sharply escalated his criticism Monday of President Bush on Iraq, accusing him of “stubborn incompetence'' and warning that if Bush is re-elected “he will repeat, somewhere else, the same reckless mistakes that have made America less secure than we can or should be.''
The Democratic presidential nominee accused Bush of offering “23 different rationales'' for the war, the principal two of which - the presence of weapons of mass destruction and a possible link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - have not been proved. Kerry noted the rising level of American casualties and said that insurgent attacks have rendered whole sections of Iraq “no-go zones'' for US troops.
Kerry, who in October 2002 voted in favor of a congressional resolution authorizing the war, said Bush rushed into Iraq without the backing of allies and without preparing a post-war plan or properly equipping American forces - “None of which I would have done,'' Kerry said.
“Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell,'' Kerry told a supportive audience assembled at New York University, downtown from where Bush will address the United Nations General Assembly today. “But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.''
He blamed Bush for “colossal failures of judgment.''
“This is stubborn incompetence,'' he said...>>
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