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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve dietrich who wrote (632228)	9/24/2004 11:55:17 AM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

KERRY FAULTS BUSH FOR PURSUING SADDAM INSTEAD OF BEN LADEN By MARY DALRYMPLE, Associated Press Writer PHILADELPHIA - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) faulted President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday for pursuing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) instead of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), a part of a Bush strategy he contended had made defeating terrorism more difficult. "The invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy, al-Qaida," Kerry said in a speech at Temple University. "There's just no question about it. The president's misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq all make the war on terror harder to win." Kerry, in offering a detailed strategy to contain terrorism and to draw a sharp distinction between his and the president's views on national security, added, "Iraq is now what it was not before the war, a haven for terrorists." A day earlier, Kerry told The Columbus Dispatch that the president's actions in Iraq and elsewhere show Bush masquerading as a mainstream conservative while pursuing extremist policies. "I don't view these people as conservatives," Kerry said. "I actually view them as extreme, and I think their policies have been extreme, and that extends all the way to Iraq, where this president, in my judgment, diverted the real war on terror — which was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida — and almost obsessively moved to deal with Iraq in a way that weakened our nation, overextended our armed forces, cost us $200 billion and created a breach in our oldest alliances." Kerry also mentioned a blurring line between the separation of church and state and the growth of federal budget deficits. To douse the spread of terrorism, Kerry proposed policies aimed at denying individuals and groups the ability to organize and attack. Kerry said he would build a better military and intelligence apparatus to go after enemies, deny terrorists weapons and financing, move against worldwide terrorist havens and recruitment centers, and promote freedom and democracy in Muslim nations. Kerry has repeatedly argued that the war in Iraq has distracted attention and resources from the pursuit of terrorists, including bin Laden.