After launching two wars, US President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to be a "peace president" and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being law-yers and weak on military policy.
With polls showing public support for the war in Iraq in decline, Bush cast himself as a reluctant warrior and assured Americans they were "safer" as he stumped in the battleground states of Iowa and Missouri against Democratic Senator John Kerry and his running mate Senator John Edwards, former trial lawyer.
"The enemy declared war on us," Bush told a re-election rally in Cedar Rapids.
"Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president ... The next four years will be peaceful years," he said.
Bush used the words "peace" or "peaceful" a total of 20 times.
Bush has called himself a "war president" in leading the US in a battle against terrorism brought about by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind," he said in February.
Despite a surge in attacks in Iraq and warnings that al-Qaeda is plotting another major strike, Bush said US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had already made the US safer, and that his re-election would let him finish the job.
Ahead of the release of a report detailing the breakdown in intelligence and security before the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush said, "We reorganized this government of ours to be better protect the people.
"For a while we were marching to war. Now we're marching to peace ... America is a safer place. Four more years and America will be safer and the world will be more peaceful," Bush said.
But a few hours later, at an evening rally in St. Charles, Missouri, Bush warned "the world will drift towards tragedy" if the US shows "weakness."
Bush was joined on the stump by his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, and campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the twins were to pair up for campaign appearances away from their father starting Tuesday night in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Stanzel said the events would be closed to the press.
Bush and Kerry are fighting hard in Iowa, which Bush lost to former vice president Al Gore in 2000 by just 4,144 votes, or roughly two votes for every precinct. Recent polls give Kerry a narrow lead, but a Kerry aide said the Iowa race and the one in Missouri remain a dead heat.
Bush won the latter state by 3 percentage points in 2000, and acknowledged in St. Charles that it would be a tough race this year.
At both rallies, he cast Kerry and Edwards as on the side of trial lawyers, who the president portrays as responsible for a flood of personal-injury litigation that burdens the courts and is costly to small business. Edwards himself made his fortune as a trial lawyer.
Democrats get campaign contributions from the group, while many businesses tend to favor the Republicans.
"I'm not a lawyer, you'll be happy to hear," Bush said.
"That's the other team. This is the pro-small business team," Bush said.
The two-state swing was part of a weeklong offensive by Bush before the Democratic National Convention in Boston starting Monday.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion