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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (203596)	9/22/2004 3:57:53 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575761

<font color=blue>"Then Kerry delivered his knockout: "If George W. Bush is re-elected, he will cling to the same failed policies in Iraq. And he will repeat, somewhere else, the same reckless mistakes.""<font color=black> ************************************************************ Kerry's Iraq blast fires up U.S. race U.S. President George Bush pulled no punches at the United Nations yesterday. He defended his war on Iraq as a blow to an "outlaw regime" and terror. He implicitly rebuked the U.N. for going easy on Saddam Hussein. And he assured anxious Americans that "freedom is finding a way" in the war-torn country, amid the terror bombs, grisly beheadings and gunfire. And if the General Assembly reacted with stony silence to Bush's appeal to stay the course in a war that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan deems illegal, it scarcely mattered. Bush was pitching over their heads to a domestic American electorate that had heard Sen. John Kerry a day earlier savage Bush's leadership, and credibility. Bush's hope of re-election rides on blunting Kerry's attack before it does Bush real harm with voters who have good reason to question his handling of the Iraq file. Three years after 9/11, most Americans are satisfied that toppling Afghanistan's Taliban regime was justified self-defence, but many are coming to believe that deposing Saddam was a hugely expensive presidential preference, not a national necessity. The Taliban had given refuge to Osama bin Laden and his trainees, who still plot terror even today. Saddam posed no similar terror threat. Nor did he have weapons of mass destruction. That leaves a lot of Americans feeling they were sold a bill of goods. So far 1,000 U.S. troops have died in Iraq, along with 15,000 Iraqis, $200 billion has been spent and no exit is in sight. Bush is vulnerable, although he leads in the polls. Kerry has belatedly awakened with a snort to that political opportunity, after a summer spent dozing, defending his Vietnam war heroics and waffling on foreign policy. In a powerful, focused speech Monday at New York University, Kerry fired the first real salvo in what ought to be the major debate of this campaign: How to repair the damage done to America's prestige, muster more international support for helping the Iraqis retake control of their destiny, and shore up strained alliances the U.S. needs to fight terror. Kerry contends that Bush, locked with his key advisers in a world of "fantasy spin," has failed on all three fronts. The biggest threat the U.S. faces is from Al Qaeda, Kerry argued. Toppling Saddam "was a profound diversion." It brought "a chaos that has left America less secure," let Osama bin Laden escape and offers "the prospect of a war with no end in sight." And Kerry pounded Bush for "a series of catastrophic decisions" that have left the U.S. isolated and vulnerable as Mideast radicalism, terrorism and nuclear proliferation grow. Then Kerry delivered his knockout: "If George W. Bush is re-elected, he will cling to the same failed policies in Iraq. And he will repeat, somewhere else, the same reckless mistakes."** While pressing the attack, Kerry also covered his flank by explaining his vote in Congress in 2002 to authorize Bush to use force against Iraq. He insisted he voted that way because he wanted to give Bush a "strong hand to play" at the United Nations to get Saddam to disarm. Instead, Bush "rushed into war" without a U.N. okay, a broad alliance or a plan for postwar Iraq. And today "Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way," Kerry charged. Kerry contends he would do better than Bush in getting "the world's major powers" to help the U.S. rebuild Iraq, and in making sure democratic elections can be held next year. That may be overly optimistic. Few allies are anxious to wade in, and the place is growing ever more violent. The truth is, there will be no easy exit from Iraq. But Kerry has usefully called attention to the vacuousness of Bush's rhetoric about freedom finding a way as the smoke of battle grows thicker. He has made the case that Washington's unilateral approach has been a disaster. And he warns Bush will offer only more of the same if he wins a second term. The debate is on. thestar.com