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Politics : Proof that John Kerry is Unfit for Command -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (22482)	10/27/2004 12:42:20 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27181

Bush says Kerry making 'wild charges' over missing Iraq explosives LITITZ, United States (AFP) - Breaking his silence on missing Iraqi explosives, US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) called Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites)'s attacks on the subject "wild charges" levelled in desperation. At a campaign rally in this crucial state just six days before the election, Bush said US forces were investigating the fate of the 350 tonnes of high explosives and that Kerry was irresponsibly jumping to conclusions. "The senator is making wild charges about missing explosives," said Bush. "Think about that: The senator is denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts." "Unfortunately, that's part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected," said the president, whom Kerry has accused of incompetent war planning in the wake of media revelations that the explosives went missing. "America is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site," said Bush. "This investigation is important, and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not the person you want as your commander in chief," said Bush. Kerry raised the missing explosives again earlier Wednesday, telling a rally in Iowa: "What we're seeing is this White House dodging and bobbing and weaving in their usual effort to avoid responsibility, just as they've done every step of the way in our involvement in Iraq (news - web sites)." Kerry said that Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) "is becoming the Chief Minister of Disinformation" in his defense of the administration over the explosives. Bush's comments also came after a top Iraqi science official said it was "impossible" that the explosives could have been smuggled out of a military site south of Baghdad before the regime fell last year. The Pentagon (news - web sites) has said it does not know when the explosives went missing. The UN nuclear watchdog agency this week said the explosives went missing from a weapons dump some time after Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime was toppled in April 2003 by the US-led invasion. The president gave a new polish to a well-worn campaign attack based on Kerry's assertion that preemptive US military action ought to be able to pass a "global test" of credibility. "I want to remind the American people: if Senator Kerry had his way, we would still be taking our global test, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, he would control all those weapons and explosives, and could share them with out terrorist enemies," Bush charged. Kerry supported disarming Saddam, but has repeatedly criticized Bush's pre-war diplomacy and post-war planning. Bush also sought to shift the focus from the missing cache to what he described as a successful search for destroy Saddam's former arsenals. "Iraq was a dangerous place run by a dangerous tyrant who had a lot of weapons. We have seized or destroyed more than 400,000 tonnes of munitions including explosives at more than a thousand different sites," said Bush. "And we continue to round up more weapons every day," he said. In Baghdad, Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the Iraqi science ministry's site monitoring department, said "it is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall." He said he and other officials had been ordered a month earlier to insure that "not even a shred of paper left the sites." story.news.yahoo.com.