US: The issue of Iraq erupted in the US presidential campaign yesterday, with Senator John Kerry accusing President Bush of "colossal failures of judgment", and Mr Bush retorting that his Democratic challenger was following a "continued pattern of twisting in the wind".
In a blistering attack on Mr Bush's record on Iraq, Mr Kerry said no responsible commander-in-chief would have waged the war knowing Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and was not an imminent threat to the US.
"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 said in a speech at New York University timed a day ahead of Mr Bush's address to the UN General Assembly.
Mr Bush responded quickly, telling supporters in New Hampshire that Mr Kerry had said before the war it would be "naive to the point of grave danger not to confront Saddam Hussein".
The exchange brought into the open a fundamental difference between Mr Bush and his Democratic challenger on Iraq.
Explaining his Senate vote giving Mr Bush war powers, Mr Kerry said Congress was right to give President Bush the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, but said the idea was to get the UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq.
"Instead, the president rushed to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work," the senator said.
UN weapons inspectors were working in Iraq up to the eve of the invasion when chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix told the UN there had been considerable improvements in co-operation by Baghdad. This was rejected by the US.
Mr Bush said in New Hampshire, "Saddam Hussein . . . systematically deceived the UN inspectors" and he could not "trust the word of a madman".
Recalling Mr Bush's recent admission of "miscalculations" in Iraq, Mr Kerry said these were "colossal failures of judgment, and judgment is what we look for in a president." There were no weapons of mass destruction nor any link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and "only Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat," he said.
"This president was in denial and he hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military."
Mr Kerry said the recent official intelligence estimate contradicted upbeat assessments of progress in Iraq that Mr Bush was giving to the American people.
Iraq now had no-go zones that were "breeding grounds for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our soldiers", he said. "Most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives, so they're sitting on the fence instead of siding with us against the insurgents."
Saddam Hussein "was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell", Mr Kerry went on, "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."
Mr Bush responded by saying his opponent "now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power".
Mr Kerry said no one had been held accountable for the "colossal failures of judgment" and "a lack of planning, an absence of candour, arrogance and outright incompetence". President Bush's Iraq policy "divided our oldest alliance and sent our standing in the Muslim world into free fall," Mr Kerry added. "Let me put it plainly: the President's policy in Iraq has not strengthened our national security. It has weakened it . . . 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 were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no - because a commander-in-chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."
Mr Kerry did not suggest a new policy on Iraq but urged Mr Bush to expand Iraqi security training, press NATO allies to help in such training, speed up reconstruction, recruit an international UN protection force to stage elections, "and stop misleading the American people with phony, inflated numbers" on Iraqi security forces. Mr Kerry said he would do everything to withdraw US troops from Iraq within four years, starting next summer. A Bush campaign spokesman said Mr Kerry's talk of bringing troops home sent a message of "defeat and retreat" to America's enemies.