WASHINGTON — With bombings in Baghdad and Madrid raising new challenges for the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John F. Kerry launched a furious debate Wednesday over who was best suited to lead the United States in the war against global terrorism.
Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, declared that President Bush had left U.S. troops vulnerable by overextending them and alienating the nation's allies. Cheney, meanwhile, questioned Kerry's fitness to serve as commander in chief.
The cross-country exchanges, waged in speeches delivered in Washington and California, marked an escalation in the vituperative tenor of the campaign. They came as the White House prepared to mark the anniversary on Saturday of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, scheduling a series of events that highlighted Bush's role as commander in chief.
Polls have shown that voters have more confidence in Bush than in Kerry to protect the United States from terrorism, and the president's campaign has sought to press that advantage. But the continuing violence in Iraq and elsewhere could undercut backing for Bush.
The Kerry and Cheney speeches also spotlighted the large role foreign policy and national security concerns were likely to play in this year's election.
The sharp comments from the two camps were played out against the backdrop of Wednesday's explosion at a Baghdad hotel that killed at least 27 people. Last Thursday, coordinated bombings of passenger trains killed 201 people in Madrid, on the eve of national elections that ousted from power one of Bush's strongest allies in the Iraq war.
Kerry, who delivered his speech at George Washington University as news of the Baghdad bombing was surfacing, argued that the U.S. military was paying the price for Bush's failure to win broader international support for the war in Iraq.
"We're still bogged down in Iraq -- and the administration stubbornly holds to failed unilateral policies that drive potential, significant, important, long-standing allies away from us," Kerry said.
"Today we know that the mission is not finished, hostilities have not ended, and our men and women in uniform fight on almost alone, in reality, with the target squarely on their back and their fronts," he said.
Asserting that, "We are weaker today militarily than we should be, but this administration stubbornly refuses to admit it," Kerry reiterated his call for adding 40,000 troops to the armed forces.
