PUEBLO, Oct 23: Democratic hopeful John Kerry on Saturday accused President George Bush of letting Osama bin Laden slip "out the back door" and of trying to scare voters into re-electing him.
Mr Kerry, probing what Democrats feel could be a weak point in the president's core support 10 days before the election, hit back a day after his rival aired a commercial featuring prowling wolves which branded him weak on terror.
The senator from Massachusetts hammered away at Mr Bush's claims that only he can be trusted to head off terror attacks on the United States, saying the president had allowed Osama bin bin Laden to escape in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan in 2001.
Mr Kerry claimed Mr Bush had called on Afghan warlords to hunt down Osama and not used US troops, a charge already denied by the Bush administration.
"Osama bin Laden just walked out the back door," he said at a rally here.
And Mr Kerry hit back at claims by Mr Bush that he has fundamentally misunderstood the "battle against terrorism".
"The President keeps going around the country trying to scare people. He talks about only one thing, it's terrorism, the war on terrorism.
"I am prepared to have that fight because I can wage a better war on terrorism than George Bush has."
TAX CUT BILL: Without fanfare, President George Bush signed into law on Friday a nearly 140 billion dollars corporate tax cut bill derided by both Democratic presidential rival John Kerry and Republican Sen. John McCain as a giveaway to special interests.
The new law aims to end a trade fight with the European Union by repealing U.S. export tax subsidies that violate global trade rules. But the EU has objected to some of the provisions and has yet to say whether it will remove its sanctions on $4 billion worth of U.S. goods.
Bush signed the measure into law aboard Air Force One en route to a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, forgoing a public signing ceremony that would have attracted attention to the tax cuts less than two weeks before Election Day.
The White House had marked the signing of Bush's other major tax bills with lavish public ceremonies. This one was marked with a one-paragraph statement by the press secretary.
Asked why there was no signing ceremony for the corporate tax bill, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said: "There are a variety of ways the president signs legislation."
The $140 billion in new business tax breaks included many special interest provisions sharply criticized by public interest groups and fiscal conservatives, which congressional aides said explained Bush's decision to sign it in private.
McCain of Arizona, who has been campaigning for Bush, called the measure "the worst example of the influence of special interests that I have ever seen."-Reuters