Kerry: Bush Not Fast Enough on Security
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Monday faulted the Bush administration’s response to the terrorist threat but dismissed suggestions that raising the terror alert was politically motivated.
“I believe this administration, in its policies, is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists,” Kerry told “American Morning” on CNN. The administration hasn’t reached out to other countries and the Muslim community, he said, and hasn’t done enough to protect U.S. ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities.
“Here we are today almost three years after Sept. 11. We still don’t have a national director of intelligence,” Kerry told an audience of firefighters and first responders at the city’s fire department.
“We need to take very specific steps outlined in the commission’s report, and I believe deeply that it’s time we have leadership that acted with a sense of urgency,” Kerry said. “We need leadership, not followship.”
The Department of Homeland Security, citing credible information that financial institutions in New York City, Washington and New Jersey were possible targets, raised the threat level for those areas.
“You take any threat seriously,” Kerry, who was briefed on Sunday about the latest threats, told CNN. “What’s important, however, is not to sort of bounce along from threat to threat. It’s to win the war, and I believe that I can fight a more effective war on terror than George Bush is.”
Kerry dismissed former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s comment that raising the terror level might be politically motivated.
“I don’t care what he said. I haven’t suggested that and I won’t suggest that,” Kerry said. “I do not hold that opinion. I don’t believe that.”
Campaigning in Grand Rapids on Monday, Kerry was releasing a book-length blueprint for his White House campaign with running mate John Edwards, including plans to fight terrorism and improve homeland security. The book will be available on his campaign Web site and distributed to supporters.
Edwards planned his own event in Orlando, Fla., as the candidates went their separate ways on a two-week, coast-to-coast tour through battleground states.
The federal government raised the threat alert level for the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Citigroup Center and Prudential Financial headquarters after specific and detailed intelligence revealed plans for bombings.
Kerry got his briefing over a secure phone line provided by the Secret Service while in the campaign bus, which stayed parked for about 40 minutes next to a ballpark in Taylor, Mich. The Massachusetts senator had just finished playing softball, where he hit two runs for the United Auto Workers team.
President Bush and Kerry are running neck-and-neck in Michigan and Wisconsin, which have a combined 27 electoral votes.
The book, more than 250 pages long, offers a detailed description of the Democratic ticket’s platform.
“We offer this plan because we believe this election should be about ideas to lift America up, not negative attacks that drag America down,” the running mates wrote.
The book contains excerpts from speeches and photos from the campaign trail and adds detail to the ideas Kerry has talked about in the months leading up to last week’s convention, when he officially became the Democrats’ choice for president.
The first chapter outlines Kerry’s plans to stop terrorism and improve domestic security. He has said he would rebuild international alliances, modernize the American military and use American influence in military, diplomatic and cultural matters to promote peace.
Kerry also embraced recommendations by the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, including a national intelligence director to oversee the numerous government agencies that collect and decipher threat information.
“John and I know that we can build a safer America by reaching out to other countries, bringing people to our side and remembering that never does the United States of America go to war because it wants to, we go to war because we have to,” Kerry told supporters at a discount mall in Springfield, Ohio, on Sunday.
The Bush campaign said the president has already acted on most of Kerry’s ideas, detailing actions in 31 of 33 cases where Kerry has called for change.
Bush also asked Congress to increase homeland security spending 14 percent next year to add money for law enforcement, vaccines and other terror prevention and response programs. Most of the rest of the budget, except for defense, proposed little to no additional spending to limit growing budget deficits.
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On the Net:
Kerry campaign: http://www.johnkerry.com
Bush campaign: http://www.georgewbush.com