GIULIANI HITS KERRY'S PLAN ON TERROR, RALLIES FOR BUSH
Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)
DAVENPORT, Iowa — President Bush, touring yesterday with former New York Mayor
Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Sen. John Kerry advocates a "cut and run" strategy in
Iraq and is "willing to wait until terrorists without conscience kill without
limit" before defending the United States.
Mr. Bush emphasized his final-week theme before 5,000 supporters in Greeley,
a farming community on the prairie of northeast Colorado, saying he is the only
choice if Americans want to wage an aggressive war on terror.
"On Iraq, my
opponent has a strategy of pessimism and retreat," Mr. Bush said. "He has sent
the signal that America's overriding goal in Iraq would be to leave, even if the
job is not done. That sends the wrong message.
"On this vital front of the war on terror, protest is not a policy, retreat
is not a strategy, and failure is not an option," he said to raucous cheers. "As
long as I'm the commander in chief, America will never retreat in the face of
the terrorists."
Mr. Giuliani, who became a national hero for his handling of the September
11 attacks on the World Trade Center, stumped with Mr. Bush yesterday in
Colorado and Iowa, two states essential to a Bush-Cheney victory.
Mr. Giuliani said leadership was essential for the presidency and that the
Massachusetts Democrat does not measure up.
"We don't want to go back to the days when Senator Kerry described terrorism
as only a nuisance. When they attacked my city for the first time, it was not
only a nuisance," Mr. Giuliani said, referring to the 1993 truck-bomb attack on
the World Trade Center.
The former mayor will visit Nevada, California and Missouri in the coming
days, then is expected to meet up with Mr. Bush and California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger for a Sunday rally in Columbus, Ohio, campaign sources said.
Mr. Bush yesterday let loose with his most pointed criticism of the
Democratic presidential nominee's various positions on the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Mr. Bush said his strategy to encourage the spread of democracy in the Arab
world — a region that has never experienced it — is the only way to ensure that
future generations live without the continual threat of catastrophic terrorist
attacks by Islamists.
The war in Iraq is a keystone to that strategy, and the president turned one
of Mr. Kerry's most famous campaign-trail cracks about the Iraq war on its head
and forged it into his own attack.
"My opponent has the wrong strategy for the wrong country at the wrong
time," Mr. Bush said to the delight of the crowd.
Mr. Kerry has suggested that trying to "impose democracy on the people of
the broader Middle East" is too ambitious and not the job of the United States.
"What is his strategy?" Mr. Bush asked. "Is he prepared to watch and wait as
resentment and anger grow for more decades? Is he content to wait as more and
more people are angry and hostile and turn to terrorism? Is he willing to wait
until terrorists without conscience kill without limit?
"Turning a blind eye is easier in the short term," he continued. "But we
learned on September 11 that if terrorism isn't opposed at the source, they will
find us where we live."
Mr. Bush said Mr. Kerry "has chosen a position of weakness and inaction" in
the war on terror and that his positions on the Cold War, the first Persian Gulf
war and his vote to cut the intelligence budget after the first World Trade
Center attack have been proved wrong by history.
The president also reached out to Democratic voters who consider national
security and the war their top concerns, a strategy that Bush campaign senior
strategist Karl Rove said yesterday is a key to victory.
Mr. Bush said Mr. Kerry's lack of conviction in the war on terror measures
up poorly against his party's wartime presidents of generations past.
"With that record, he stands in opposition not just to me, but to the great
tradition of the Democratic Party," Mr. Bush said.
"The party of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy is
rightly remembered for confidence and resolve in times of war and in hours of
crisis," Mr. Bush said. "Senator Kerry has turned his back on 'pay any price'
and 'bear any burden,' and he has replaced those commitments with 'wait and see'
and 'cut and run.'
"Many Democrats in this country do not recognize their party anymore. Today,
I want to speak to every one of them: If you believe that America should lead
with strength and purpose and confidence in our ideals, I would be honored to
have your support, and I ask for your vote," he said.
Mr. Kerry has been saying for weeks that Mr. Bush bungled the post-September
11 Afghanistan operation because he had Osama bin Laden "cornered" in the
mountains of Tora Bora and let him get away. That version of events has been
countered by retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who was the commander of forces in the
Middle East at the time.
Yesterday, however, Mr. Bush stepped into the fray for the first time.
"Now my opponent is throwing out the wild claim that he knows where bin
Laden was in the fall of 2001 and that our military had a chance to get him in
Tora Bora," Mr. Bush said. "This is an unjustified and harsh criticism of our
military commanders in the field. This is the worst kind of Monday-morning
quarterbacking, and it is what we have come to expect from Senator Kerry."
Mr. Rove said he thinks Mr. Kerry's near-daily criticisms of Mr. Bush, often
ripped from the day's headlines, are hurting the Democrat among swing voters
tired of the negativity.
And he saw Mr. Kerry's appearance in Philadelphia with former President Bill
Clinton yesterday as the act of a man who is having trouble with his core
Democratic voters.
"It's quite a sight to see Bill Clinton rolling out of a hospital bed to
save this dying campaign," Mr. Rove said.