WASHINGTON, April 18: Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry slammed President George W. Bush's team on its handling of foreign policy on Sunday, promising, if elected, to chart a new more cooperative course in US relations with other nations.

"This administration has proven stunningly ineffective in diplomacy," Mr Kerry told NBC television. "Our administration has been as arrogant and ineffective as it could possibly be."

"If I am president I will not only personally go to the UN (after election) I will go to other capitals and I will have my secretary of state fully empowered ... which we now know from Bob Woodward's book is not the case," he said. Journalist Woodward's new book "Plan of Attack" says Secretary of State Colin Powell was effectively sidelined in decision-making before the invasion of Iraq.

"Never has the United States of America been held in such low regard, and polls have shown this," Mr Kerry added. He said that if elected "I will immediately reach out to other" countries and go to the United Nations and seek to reintegrate the United States into the international community. He promised change in "our approach to North Korea", AIDS, nonproliferation and global warming.

"I will never cede the security of the United States to any institution. I will be a president who understands that multilateralism is not weakness, it is strength. Bush's father (ex-president George Bush) did a brilliant job of that."

Asked if the US-led war in Iraq was a mistake, Mr Kerry said "I think the way the president went to war was a mistake." "Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. We need to take a look at the truth again."

Bush "has no record to run on. He has a record to run away from," he said, referring to the loss of jobs Mr Bush presided over, his lack of a comprehensive health-care plan and the expanding US budget deficit.

"He misleads his own administration, he misleads his own secretary of state about his own planning for war. Americans are going to hear the truth which has been sorely lacking," said Mr Kerry. -AFP