Kerry on Iraq: Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time

By Patricia Wilson

CANONSBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Monday called the invasion of Iraq "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and said his goal was to withdraw U.S. troops in his first White House term.

Under pressure from some Democrats to change the subject from national security -- regarded by many as President Bush's
strongest issue -- Kerry tried to focus exclusively on the economy and other domestic topics at a neighborhood meeting but supporters raised Iraq.

The Massachusetts senator, who has said he would have voted to give Bush the authority to use force if necessary against Iraq even if he had known at the time that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, has struggled to draw clear contrasts with the president.

"I would not have done just one thing differently than the president on Iraq, I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq," Kerry said.

He denied that he was "Monday morning quarterbacking." "I said this from the beginning of the debate to the walk up to the war. I said, Mr. President don't rush to war, take the time to build a legitimate coalition and have a plan to win the peace."

Kerry said Bush had failed on all three counts. He called the
president's talk about a coalition fighting alongside about 125,000 U.S. troops "the phoniest thing I've ever heard."

"You've about 500 troops here, 500 troops there and it's American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war," he said. "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time."

GETTING OUT OF IRAQ

Kerry, like Bush, promised that the United States would stay the course in Iraq until the country is secure, saying: "We have to do what we need to do to get out and do it right."

He pledged to internationalize the forces in Iraq and do a better job of fighting "a more effective, smarter" war on terror that he said would actually make Americans safer.

Although he declined to set a precise timetable for pulling out
U.S. troops, Kerry said it would be possible if certain conditions were met, such as bringing allies to the table to help with security and reconstruction.

He also said Washington should make it clear to the world that the United States had no "long-term designs to maintain bases and troops in Iraq.

"We want those troops home and my goal would be to try to get them home in my first term and I believe that can be done," he said. If Kerry were to beat Bush in the Nov. 2 presidential election, his first four-year term would end in January 2009.

Kicking off a Labor Day offensive in three crucial battleground states -- Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio -- Kerry focused on pocketbook issues as he tried to reinvigorate his campaign after new polls showed him trailing Bush by double digits.

On the front porch of Dale and Jody Rhome's house in Canonsburg, he assailed the president's economic policies and said if Americans wanted four more years of losing jobs and health care "then you ought to go vote for George Bush

Kerry had always been firm about holding Saddam accountable. Saddam needed to be held accountable, but it had to be done right. Bush, through the fall of 2002 was lying about his intentions to go to war. We all knew he had no other plan but war. He refused to listen to moderates in his party and set his sights on war.

In this vein, many asked the administration to go to the UN and make Saddam's accountability an issue of international collaboration. Bush was non-committal and so the Senate voted to give the President the authorization to go to war. To have withheld that authorization, would have doomed any UN action, because the president would be asking for support from the international community that he couldn't get from the US Congress. Because Congress gave Bush the authority, he could stand in the well of the UN and demand accountability for Saddam.

John Kerry made it clear what the conditions were for his vote. Kerry, knowing he could be president someday, knew that he would want to be trusted with such authority if and when the situation called for it. Kerry said that Bush must build an international coalition, Bush didn't. Kerry said we must give the weapons inspectors time, Bush refused. Kerry was also one of the first people, in a Hardball w/ Chris Matthews interview at the Citadel, to talk about the difficulty of an occupation. But the president in his strong headedness, refused wise counsel and went to war any way, with out building a coalition, without letting the inspections process work, without telling the truth about the intelligence and without a plan for the post-war occupation.

Now the president acknowledges a "miscalculation." In the immortal words of John Kerry, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"