US rendered less safe from terrorism, Kerry says

As he prepares for a possible second run for the presidency, Senator John F. Kerry asserted yesterday that President Bush's foreign policy has made the nation less safe from terrorist threats, and said he plans to travel around the country to rebut Republican attempts to paint Democrats as weak on national security.

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Bush and his top aides are playing the ``fear card" in advance of the November congressional elections to mask the fact that the Iraq war has turned that country into ``a fuel depot for terror" and has resulted in a civil war.

Speaking in Boston two days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- on a brilliant morning that he said was ``eerily remindful of Sept. 11 itself" -- Kerry outlined a five-step strategy to make the nation safer. The plan includes withdrawing US troops from Iraq and beefing up the American military presence in Afghanistan.

``The president wants Americans to believe only one party wants to fight terror," Kerry told an enthusiastic hometown crowd at Faneuil Hall. ``That is a desperately cynical game to try to win an election. I believe we need a game plan to capture and kill Osama bin Laden, not a few congressional seats."

In an interview with the Globe after the speech, Kerry said he is planning an extensive travel schedule through the fall on behalf of Democratic candidates, beginning with a trip to New Hampshire today and to Iowa next weekend.

He said he is also scheduling stops in states that don't figure as heavily in the presidential primary calendar, with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California organizing a five-day trip for him to make on behalf of House candidates next month.

Kerry said he plans to build off one of the lessons of his failed 2004 presidential campaign, by helping Democrats react quickly and decisively to GOP claims that they would weaken the country.

``You've got to be right back at 'em -- in their face," Kerry said. ``Some people in our party want to change the subject. They want to go off and talk about something else. I think that's an enormous mistake, and I think it's weak. I think we have to be strong, we have to be clear, and we have to go at them. We did a lot of that in '04; we didn't do enough."

Reflecting another lesson learned from the campaign, Kerry yesterday attacked Bush by playing off one of his own most infamous lines -- one that Bush made famous through mockery during the 2004 campaign.

``Let me say it plainly: No American president should be for torture before he's against it," Kerry said. Kerry's 2004 statement -- ``I actually did vote for the $87 billion [in war spending] before I voted against it" -- was exploited by Republicans throughout the campaign.

Republicans have made clear that they intend to make national security issues a major focus of the fall campaigns, a strategy that served them well in the past two election cycles. In a series of recent speeches, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have asserted that Democrats who want to withdraw from Iraq would endanger the nation by handing a victory to terrorists.

Within minutes of the conclusion of Kerry's speech, the Republican National Committee issued a rundown of the senator's statements and votes that Republicans say suggest weakness. The RNC also attacked Kerry for politicizing the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

``As America commemorates our nation coming together at a time of massive devastation, it's unfortunate that John Kerry attacks successful efforts to fight the central front of the ideology that inspired such horror," said Tara Wall, an RNC spokeswoman.

But Kerry said recent speeches by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld show that Republicans will ``twist any truth" to attack Democrats in congressional campaigns. And Kerry said Republicans' depictions of Democratic plans for Iraq as ``cut and run" ignores the way that the Bush White House has allowed Afghanistan to backslide to the point where it is once again a breeding ground for terrorists.

``This administration has `cut and run' while the Taliban-led insurgency is running amok across entire regions of the country," he said. ``The administration has `cut and run' while Osama bin Laden and his henchmen hide and plot in a lawless no-man's land."

Aside from deploying all combat troops from Iraq by next July and sending at least 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan, Kerry's plan would invest in port and cargo security while implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations; work through ``global institutions" such as the United Nations to reassert the country's ``moral authority"; and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources by capping greenhouse gas emissions and investing in alternative energy technologies.

He also suggested that the Bush administration distributed homeland security money to settle political scores, saying that GOP-leaning ``red states" saw disproportionate boosts in the latest round of grants, while Democratic ``blue states" saw larger-than-average cuts.

``What should count here is the terrorist target list, not the Republican National Committee's target list," Kerry said.

Kerry's address was the fourth issue-based speech he has delivered in recent months at Faneuil Hall. It followed a series of efforts whereby Kerry has sought to establish himself as a firmly antiwar Democrat, after a 2004 presidential campaign in which his position on Iraq was often viewed as confusing or contradictory.

Kerry, who is considering making a second run for the White House in 2008, said nothing further yesterday about his prospects. He insisted that the speeches are an effort to make good on his 2004 campaign promise to continue fighting for the issues he believes in, and are not part of his presidential ambitions.

While the possibility of a second Kerry presidential run is dismissed by many Democrats, a series of actions by the senator have helped shape the early phases of the 2008 presidential field.

The filibuster Kerry led of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. forced other Senate Democrats to take a firm stand and has since been an object of discussion in races around the country.

While the timetable for Iraq troop withdrawal he offered failed in a lopsided Senate vote, that, too, has emerged as a marking point for Democrats nationwide, and has helped crystallize Democratic opposition to the war.