Here's the report. You decide.
Today candidates Bush and Kerry traded sharp barbs over Iraq. Kerry criticized Bush's handling of Iraq and Bush accused Kerry of shifting positions.
Below are Kerry and Bush's comments side by side along with excerpts from Kerry's speech on the Senate Floor in advance of his vote on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq.
What John Kerry saidSeptember 20, 2004Speech at New York University, |
George W. Bush's takeSeptember 20, 2004Remarks by the President at "ask President Bush" Event |
What John Kerry saidOctober 9, 2002Speech on Iraq War Authorization |
| Two years ago, Congress was right to give the President the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This President ... any President ... would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This President misused that authority. | Today, my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind, with new contradictions of his old positions on Iraq. | In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days - to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out. |
| The power entrusted to the President gave him a strong hand to play in the international community. The idea was simple. We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And we would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: disarm or be disarmed. | My opponent looked at that intelligence, as he had for many years since he had been in Washington for a long period of time, and voted "yes" when it came to the authorization of the use of force. | I have said publicly for years that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein pose a real and grave threat to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. |
| Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there was no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, no other imminent threat, the United States should have invaded Iraq? | He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he still would have voted for force, even knowing everything we know today. | Last week the Secretary of State and on Monday night the President made clear we would go to war only to disarm Iraq ... If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent - and I emphasize "imminent" - threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs. |
| I would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure and isolate Saddam Hussein - who was weak and getting weaker - so that he would pose no threat to the region or America. | Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power, not in prison. | It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. |
| Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure. | Today he said, "We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure." He's saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy. | As much as we decry the way he has treated his people, regime change alone is not a sufficient reason for going to war, as desirable as it is to change the regime. |
| Can anyone seriously say this President has handled Iraq in a way that makes us stronger in the war on terrorism? By any measure, the answer is no. Nuclear dangers have mounted across the globe. The international terrorist club has expanded. Radicalism in the Middle East is on the rise. We have divided our friends and united our enemies. | I couldn't disagree more. And not so long ago, so did my opponent. Last December, he said this: "Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be President or the credibility to be elected President." | Today the administration has refocused their aim and made clear we are not in an arbitrary conflict with one of the world's many dictators, but a conflict with a dictator whom the international community left in power only because he agreed not to pursue weapons of mass destruction ... I am pleased that the Bush administration has recognized the wisdom of shifting its approach on Iraq. |
| We must have a great honest national debate on Iraq. The President claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight. | He also changed his mind and decided that our efforts in Iraq are now a distraction from the war on terror, when he earlier acknowledged that confronting Saddam Hussein was critical to the war on terror. | By casting about in an unfocused, undisciplined, overly public, internal debate for a rationale for war, the administration complicated their case, confused the American public, and compromised America's credibility in the eyes of the world community. By engaging in hasty war talk rather than focusing on the central issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the administration placed doubts in the minds of potential allies, particularly in the Middle East, where managing the Arab street is difficult at best. |
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