Bush and Kerry Contrast on Iraq, Homeland Security
By Thomas Rains
WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 21 -The Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq have brought foreign policy to the forefront of the 2004 presidential campaign.
For years Americans would “vote their pocketbooks,” but now the threat of terrorism competes with economic issues as the voters’ main concern. Because of this, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry have repeatedly expressed their positions on foreign policy, on the future of the war in Iraq and on homeland security.
On Iraq, the President and senator agreed before the Iraq war on the possibility that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to U.S. national security.
Kerry voted to give the President the power to invade Iraq in 2002, yet they disagree on the timing of the war, the reconstruction efforts in Iraq, and the state of the “Coalition of the Willing” that Bush assembled to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.
In a second term, Bush has implied he would continue his administration’s policy of fighting terrorists in countries that harbor them.
“This nation of ours has got a solemn duty to defeat this ideology of hate,” Bush said in the first presidential debate in Miami on Sept. 30.
Kerry, on the other hand, has said that as president he would work hard through summits and diplomacy to rebuild alliances that he says Bush has let disintegrate.
“I believe America is safest and strongest when we are leading the world and we are leading strong alliances,” Kerry said at the same debate.
In the first debate the candidates addressed issues relating to foreign policy. The debate provided a strong comparison of the two candidates’ positions in a campaign that many have argued was starved of discussion about important issues..
While he voted in favor of allowing Bush to invade Iraq, Kerry disagrees with Bush’s timing for the invasion. During the debate, the senator said that America needed to be smarter in its execution of force in the world, and then explained his reasoning.
“Smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden,” Kerry said, “and taking it off to Iraq where the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.”
Bush defends his decision to invade Iraq, and has stuck throughout the campaign to his belief that he made the right decision.
“In Iraq, we saw a threat, and we realized that after September the 11th, we must take threats seriously, before they fully materialize,” Bush said in Miami. “We continue to pursue our policy of disrupting those who proliferate weapons of mass destruction.”
In the months after the actual combat mission to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, American troops have battled insurgents while they have tried to ready Iraq for elections and complete sovereignty. Kerry has accused Bush of not preparing for this phase of the operation and has said the United States must hold a summit to bring allies into the reconstruction process, while Bush has said the coalition must push forward and work towards letting the Iraqis be free.
“He rushed to war in Iraq without a plan to win the peace,” Kerry said during the debate. “You don’t take America to war unless you have the plan to win the peace.”
Bush has focused on the ultimate goal.
“A free Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror, and that’s essential,” Bush said. “A free Iraq will enforce the hopes and aspirations of the reformers in places like Iran. A free Iraq is essential for the security of this country.”
Kerry agrees that a free Iraq is the goal; however, his method is different from Bush’s current course.
“I’ve laid out a plan by which I think we can be successful in Iraq: with a summit, by doing better training, faster,” Kerry said. “By doing what we need to do with respect to the U.N and the elections.”
“Our goal in my administration would be to get all of the troops out of there with a minimal amount you need for training and logistics as we do in some other countries in the world after a war to be able to sustain the peace,” the senator said.
Bush has stuck to his plan, and reiterated this in the debate.
“There are 100,000 troops trained–police, guard, special units, border patrol. There’s going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year,” Bush said. “Yes, we’re getting the job done.”
Training of the Iraqis is being done by forces from the Coalition of the Willing, which is currently made up of 28 countries. There are approximately 133,000 foreign troops in Iraq, of which about 112,000 are from the United States, according to the British Broadcasting Corp. Kerry has criticized the Bush administration for this preponderance of American soldiers and claims that there should be a greater international presence.
“What we need now is a president who understands how to bring these other countries together to recognize their stakes in [the Iraq war],” Kerry said. “But this president hasn’t even held the kind of statesman-like summits that pull people together and get them to invest in those states.” Kerry also accused Bush of turning away the help of the United Nations.
Bush, who touts the countries of the coalition on a regular basis during campaign speeches, disagrees with the senator and says that a president cannot build a coalition when “you denigrate the contributions of those who are serving side by side with American troops in Iraq.”
Bush added that “Our coalition is strong. It will remain strong, so long as I’m the President.”
On the issue of homeland security, Kerry has repeatedly accused Bush of not providing enough resources to protect the United States from another terrorist attack, and has said that before Sept. 11 the President was against a Department of Homeland Security. However, Bush did support creation of the department, providing the largest overhaul of homeland security in the country’s history.
Bush stands by his actions but Kerry says he has not done enough.
Kerry accuses Bush of cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and funding Iraqi police officers instead of spending enough money to secure ports, tunnels, bridges and subways and bolster first responder resources in the United States.
Bush refutes this.
During the debate Bush noted that he had “tripled the amount of money we’re spending on homeland security” and said the country has added more border patrol on the Mexican border and was working to do the same on the Canadian border.
Bush also defends the controversial Patriot Act, which Congress passed after the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush calls it “vital” that Congress renew it to allow “our law enforcement to disrupt terror cells.”
Many critics of the Patriot Act argue that it violates the civil liberties of Americans while not doing enough to stop terrorists in the United States.
Kerry voted for it in the Senate but he argues that some parts of it must be changed. According to his campaign website, Kerry would keep 95 percent of the provisions of the act. Among other things, specifically he wants to strengthen the provision that cracks down on money laundering. He also wants to revise the provision that gives the government the power to search a person’s library records, by requiring a judicial review of the evidence before a search is allowed.
Kerry and Bush both have clearly stated their positions on the role of the United States in the world, on the war on terrorism and on homeland security. In the post-Sept. 11 world these issues will play a bigger role when voters go to the polls on Nov. 2 than they have in past elections.
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