WASHINGTON — A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November.
The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush's foreign policy, according to several of those who signed the document.
"It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration," said William C. Harrop, the ambassador to Israel under President Bush's father and one of the group's principal organizers.
Those signing the document, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, include 20 former U.S. ambassadors, appointed by presidents of both parties, to countries including Israel, the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia.
Others are senior State Department officials from the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations and former military leaders, including retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East under President Bush's father. Hoar is a prominent critic of the war in Iraq.
Some of those signing the document -- such as Hoar and former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill A. McPeak -- have identified themselves as supporters of Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. But most have not endorsed any candidate, members of the group said.
It is unusual for so many former high-level military officials and career diplomats to issue such an overtly political message during a presidential campaign.
A senior official at the Bush reelection campaign said he did not wish to comment on the statement until it was released.
But in the past, administration officials have rejected charges that Bush has isolated America in the world, pointing to countries contributing troops to the coalition in Iraq and the unanimous passage last week of the U.N. resolution authorizing the interim Iraqi government.
One senior Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking said he did not think the group was sufficiently well-known to create significant political problems for the president.
The strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said the signatories were making an argument growing increasingly obsolete as Bush leans more on the international community for help in Iraq.
