US President George W. Bush is striking back at Senator John Kerry's increasingly aggressive criticism on Iraq, asking Amer-icans to stick with him on the war in the face of surging violence there.
But Bush is facing a fresh wave of attacks from members of his own party, including an influential senator who said Sunday the administration's "incompetence" was to blame for the country's slow recovery from war.
Kerry has been lambasting Bush in recent days on the cost of the Iraq war in lives and dollars, and the Democratic senator was planning a new strategy yesterday.
The Democrat "will lay out his plan for cleaning up the mess George Bush has made in Iraq," said campaign spokesman Phil Singer.
In a speech in New Hampshire yesterday afternoon, Bush was countering by saying the nation needs "consistency" in its leadership -- not a change in the middle of the war, and not a series of contradictions, said campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel.
"Our troops deserve better than to hear Kerry's campaign pushing pessimism and lack of faith in the mission," Stanzel said.
As evidence of the pessimism, Stanzel pointed to remarks last week by retired admiral William Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an adviser to presidential candidate John Kerry.
Crowe said Friday the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and the US must reconsider its military efforts.
"That is the No. 1 lesson of Vietnam. We must decide if we're paying a larger price at home than justifies the gains made in Iraq," Crowe said.
Separately, it was reported last week that the National Intelligence Council presented Bush this summer with three pessimistic scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq, including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of next year.
Six weeks before the election, Bush was also the subject of unusually harsh criticism from members of his own party, some of whom also invoked Vietnam.
"The fact is, a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn't do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who is co-chairman of Bush's re-election committee in Nebraska. He spoke on Face the Nation, a Sunday morning talk show.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Richard Lugar, noted that Congress appropriated US$18.4 billion a year ago this week for reconstruction. No more than US$1 billion has been spent.
"This is the incompetence in the administration," Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, said on ABC's This Week, another political talk show.
Lugar added that the US needs to train more Iraqi police officers and better coordinate military bombings with Iraqi forces "so that we do not alienate further the Iraqi people by intrusions that are very difficult and are costly in terms of lives."
Senator John McCain, another Vietnam War veteran, was asked on Fox News Sunday about Bush's often rosy pronouncements about progress in Iraq.
McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said Bush was not being "as straight as we would want him to be" about the situation.
An adviser to McCain, John Weaver, sought to soften McCain's remark, saying it should not be considered a broad critique of the war. Weaver said McCain simply "has some concerns about the day-to-day tactics."
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