0
TIPTON, Oct 5: Democratic White House challenger John Kerry accused President George W. Bush of mismanaging the war in Iraq after a former top aide said the U.S. paid the price for not deploying enough troops after last year's invasion.
Paul Bremer, the former administrator for Iraq, said in a speech this week that the U.S. intervention in Iraq was hampered early on by a lack of adequate forces and efforts to contain looting after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Bremer said. "We never had enough troops on the ground." Kerry, at a campaign stop in Iowa, seized on the remarks, stating, "There is a long list of mistakes (in Iraq) and I'm glad Paul Bremer has finally acknowledged at least two of them."
The decorated Vietnam veteran also said he hoped Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would do the same. Bremer made the remarks at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, according to The Washington Post, which reported them on Tuesday.
LATEST ATTACK: The Massachusetts senator's latest attack came exactly four weeks before the presidential election, with polls showing he erased much of the deficit he faced before last week's debate against Bush.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush relied on the recommendations of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the military commanders, not Bremer, when it came to determining troop levels.
McClellan noted that Bremer said troop levels in Iraq today were adequate to deal with a deadly insurgency. "If there is or ever has been a request for more troops or resources, the president would make sure that the commanders have what they needed," the spokesman added.
At a town hall meeting in Iowa, a key battleground state that Bush just visited on Monday, Kerry renewed his charge that Bush is stubborn and "out of touch" on issues at home and abroad.
The Democrat, as he did in last week's debate, evoked Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, whom he said knew the value of assembling a wide coalition to take on Iraq and share the cost in the first Gulf War.
Kerry said instead Bush the son has forced Americans to shoulder 90 percent of the costs and the bulk of casualties in Iraq. "That is not a grand coalition. That is not what the American people deserve and need," Kerry said at Tipton Middle School.
Kerry spent much of the session discussing his plans to help middle class families struggling with higher energy, health care and tuition costs as incomes fall and job losses rise.
"Today, the president goes around America and he tells you that the economy is just fine; we're getting stronger every day; that things are better. But he's not in touch with the lives of the people - the average Americans," Kerry said.
JOBS LOST: Iowa has lost some 28,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush took office, and Kerry said if elected he would create more than 100,000 jobs in the state. Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt called Kerry's economic plan ineffective and said the senator's own advisers had admitted it would not create jobs.
"Kerry's plans for job-killing tax hikes would devastate Iowa's growing economy, and Kerry's false attacks are designed to obscure Iowa's low 4.5 percent unemployment rate," Schmidt said in a statement. Democrat Al Gore carried Iowa by 4,144 votes over Bush in 2000. In Cedar County, where Kerry spoke, Gore beat Bush by a mere two votes. -Reuters
