US President George W. Bush accused John Kerry on Monday of trying to gut intelligence services and of lacking the fitness to lead America "in a time of war," in his sharpest attack against his Demo-cratic rival.
Bush said the Massachusetts senator introduced a bill in 1995 to cut intelligence services by US$1.5 billion. Bush lambasted the bill as "deeply irresponsible," as he and Vice President Dick Cheney sought to cast doubt on Kerry's ability to lead in the "war on terror," which Bush declared following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services," Bush told a Houston fundraiser. "And that is no way to lead our nation in a time of war."
PHOTO: AP
"As I tell people, war's what they got with George W. Bush as president, and we're going to win the war," he told a local television station in an interview.
The Kerry campaign retorted that the accusations on the intelligence bill were misleading. The senator was opposing an intelligence budget he said was "essentially a slush fund for defense contractors."
The campaign said Kerry voted to support US$200 billion in intelligence spending in the past seven years.
PHOTO: AP
The president's broadsides against Kerry came as polls suggested a tough re-election campaign for Bush, whose approval ratings are hovering near the lowest of his presidency and who is lagging Kerry in surveys for the November election.
Kerry campaigned on Saturday in Bush's home state of Texas, using the attention-grabbing expression, "Houston, we've got a problem," to hammer Bush on the anemic rate of job creation in the US economy.
The jab prompted Bush to put his full Texas pride on display.
"Nothing like spending the weekend in Texas," he told those attending a midday fundraiser. "If you can't count on your home state in politics, you're in deep trouble."
Later, as he surveyed prize heifers at a Houston livestock show and rodeo, Bush said: "It is really good to be home. I thought there was a lot of bull in Washington."
In Des Moines, Iowa, Cheney joined the attack on Kerry, accusing him of embracing a strategy "which holds that when we are attacked, we ought to round up the guilty parties and put them on trial."
Cheney also spoke of a conversation he had with a soldier who told him "indecision kills."
"Indecision kills," Cheney said. "These are not times for leaders who shift with the political winds, saying one thing one day and another thing the next. We need a commander-in-chief of a clear vision and steady determination."
Meanwhile, Kerry blasted the White House for "bad, rushed decisions" like the war with Iraq that he said had cost American lives.
Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who commanded a Navy Swift boat in the Mekong Delta, hit back at first with irony, telling a rally in Tampa, "Vice President Cheney ... attacked me and I'm just quaking up here."
But he quickly turned serious.
"He then invoked a soldier's comment to him that indecision kills," Kerry said. "Well, let me tell you something Mr. Cheney, Mr. President, bad, rushed decisions kill too."
Winding up a Southern swing through Florida and three other states -- Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana -- that were due to hold nominating contests yesterday, Kerry earlier predicted Republicans would try to "tear down" his character and said some foreign leaders had privately confided they hoped he would beat Bush.
He told supporters in Fort Lauderdale he expected a tough 8-month campaign in which Republicans would make an effort to malign him and his wife, outspoken heiress and philanthropist Teresa Heinz Kerry.
"I am convinced that we have the ability to win this race," Kerry said. "It's going to be hard fought, they're going to do everything possible to tear down my character personally [and] Teresa. That's the way they operate."
Kerry noted how Republicans turned on one of their own in 2000, when US Senator John McCain of Arizona, another decorated Vietnam War veteran who survived six years as a prisoner of war, ran against Bush for the party's nomination.
"They even tried to challenge John McCain's tenure as a prisoner for six years ... they tried to besmirch his character, so I expect everything," he said.
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