Kerry, president spar over policyGRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- John F. Kerry said yesterday President Bush is "encouraging the recruitment of terrorists" with a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack that has alienated moderate Muslims and left the United States without sufficient defenses, a charge the president branded "ridiculous" and said reflected "a misunderstanding of the war on terror."
The comments highlighted a clear difference the two contenders are offering the nation as they battle for the support of a small corps of undecided voters. The exchange also indicates heightened aggressiveness by the Kerry campaign in challenging Bush on the traditionally Republican territory of national security. The daylong skirmish began with the Democratic candidate's appearance on a morning television news show. The comments brought responses from Bush at a Rose Garden news conference, as well as from the Republican National Committee, and then countercharges from the Kerry campaign. The give-and-take illustrates how closely fought the race for the White House is, with three months before the election. Kerry touched off the debate during an appearance on CNN's "American Morning," where he was asked about the latest warning that financial institutions in New York City, Newark, and Washington may be the target of an Al Qaeda attack. Kerry had received an intelligence briefing on the threat Sunday night. The warning prompted an increase in the terrorist threat level warning system for those three areas. "I believe this administration, in its policies, is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists" the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We haven't done the work necessary to reach out to other countries. We haven't done the work necessary with the Muslim world. We haven't done the work necessary to protect our own ports, our chemical facilities, our nuclear facilities. There's a long, long list in the 9/11 Commission recommendations of things that are undone." Kerry has previously accused Bush of bolstering terrorist recruitment through what he has deemed a rush to war in Iraq, but he has stopped short of saying the president's actions have "encouraged" supporters to enlist. Later in the morning, during a news conference in this traditionally Republican city where he continued his cross-country bus tour, Kerry read from a memorandum written Oct. 16 by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to support his point. In it, Rumsfeld told Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top advisers, "Today we lack the metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us? . . . The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists." Kerry told reporters, "Now, obviously, I'm on the offense and want to be on the offensive. I have voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, and I've laid out how you do it thoughtfully. In addition to that, John Edwards and I have made it clear, you can't run, you can't hide, we're going to destroy the terrorists. But there are so many other things that we could be doing that also reach out to the Muslim world to try to isolate the terrorists, not to see the United States isolated." Bush responded to Kerry's charges during an appearance in the Rose Garden to announce he was creating the position of national intelligence director and a National Counter-Terrorism Center. Asked about Kerry's CNN comment, Bush said: "That's a misunderstanding of the war on terror. Obviously, we have a clear -- a difference of opinion, a clear difference of opinion about the stakes that face America. These people we face are cold-blooded, committed killers. They're interested in destroying our way of life. They were interested in destroying our way of life before I arrived in office." He added: "The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice. Evidently some must think that you can negotiate with them, you can talk sense to them, you can hope that they change. That's not what I know. I know in order to deal with these people, we must bring them to justice before they hurt us again. And so we're on the offense. . . . It is a ridiculous notion to assert that because the United States is on the offense, more people want to hurt us. We are on the offense because people do want to hurt us." Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, also issued a statement saying, "John Kerry can't articulate a consistent or credible message to the American people on the threat of terror -- one week it's exaggerated, one week, it's the president's 'trump card' and one week it's John Kerry's campaign message of the week. John Kerry does not offer strong, consistent leadership to a nation at war against global terror." Later, Kerry campaign officials accused the Bush campaign of distorting the comments as endorsing negotiations with terrorists. Teresa Heinz Kerry, the candidate's wife, provided her own rejoinder as she introduced her husband to a crowd of more than 10,000 spread on both banks of the Milwaukee River in the downtown of Wisconsin's largest city. When a Bush supporter started chanting "Four more years" over a bullhorn outside the park where they appeared, Heinz Kerry stopped and proclaimed, "They want four more years of hell." Kerry roared with laughter and later told the crowd, "Wasn't Teresa great? She speaks her mind as she speaks the truth, and she's pretty good on her feet." He branded the protesters "goons" who will "excite us to do a little more work." The point-counterpoint underscored Kerry's attempt to portray himself as both aggressive and diplomatic, while casting the president as cavalier and engaged more in rhetoric than achieving results. By contrast, Bush depicts the Massachusetts senator as indecisive and subject to the prevailing political winds, as well as someone who would cede the country's defense to the whims of the United Nations. During the primary campaign, Kerry triggered some of his loudest applause when he said, "Bring it on," a challenge to Bush that mocked the president's challenge to the terrorists. Now, both Kerry and his running mate are using similarly muscular language. In his speech accepting the vice presidential nomination, Edwards said last week, "We will have one clear, unmistakable message for Al Qaeda and the rest of these terrorists: You cannot run, you cannot hide, and we will destroy you." Edwards was in Florida yesterday courting Cuban-American voters. The line has since been incorporated into both Kerry's and Edwards's stump speeches, and similar language from Kerry's acceptance speech is featured in a Democratic National Committee television ad supporting the Massachusetts senator.
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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