CLEVELAND — Sen. John F. Kerry toughened his criticism of the war in Iraq on Monday, calling it the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." But President Bush responded by saying the Democrat's comments were another example of indecisiveness on the issue.
The exchange underscored how the war remains a central issue of the presidential campaign, particularly as the death toll of U.S. troops nears 1,000. Polls show that a majority of Americans question the rationale for the war. But Kerry has struggled at times to distinguish his stance on Iraq from Bush's, a matter that has bedeviled his campaign for months.
On Monday, Kerry more directly challenged the war's consequences during a morning forum with residents in Canonsburg, Pa.
"This president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace, and he's cost all of you $200 billion that could have gone to schools, could have gone to healthcare, could have gone to prescription drugs, could have gone to our Social Security," the Massachusetts senator said.
"And the fact is when they talk about a coalition [of U.S. and foreign troops], that's the phoniest thing I've ever heard," Kerry said, "You've got 500 troops here, 500 troops there, and it's American troops that are 90% of the combat casualties, and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90% of the cost of the war."
Kerry's latter comment was a reference to Bush's claim that the war is being waged by a coalition of 30 countries. Of the roughly 160,000 troops now deployed in Iraq, nearly 88% come from the U.S.
Minutes later, when a man asked him when he would bring U.S. troops home, Kerry said he could do it within four years. Until Monday, the Democratic nominee had said he would seek to bring "a significant number" of troops home by the end of his first term, replacing them with soldiers from European and Arab nations.
"My goal would be to try to get them home in my first term, and I believe that can be done," Kerry said.
Those remarks prompted Bush and his advisors to do some quick speech rewriting on their way to rural southeastern Missouri, where the president ridiculed Kerry.
"After voting for the war and against its funding, and after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we knew today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisors and yet another new position," the president told 10,000 supporters in a field in tiny Poplar Bluff.
