Kerry calls Iraq war a failure, pushes for replacing Rumsfeld

By Mike Glover
The Associated Press

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"Why should we reward more of the same? Why should we reward miscalculations of what it would take to make the peace?" Kerry asked in an interview with Associated Press Radio. "I think that it's been one miscalculation after another, frankly. And arrogance that has lost America respect and influence in the world."

Although Kerry has spent the week promoting his health-care proposals, he is frequently asked about the war. Marc Racicot, Bush's campaign chairman, accused Kerry of dragging politics into the war on terror and warned that domestic criticism undermines military morale.

"Political attacks come at a price for the military," Racicot told reporters in a conference call.

Kerry rejected the charge that he had politicized the war. "They had no plan for winning the peace and now Americans are paying the price," he said.

In another interview, Kerry disagreed that replacing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would disrupt the war effort.

Kerry has repeatedly praised Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, and he told broadcaster Don Imus that McCain would be one person he would consider as a replacement for Rumsfeld. Kerry also named Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's ranking Democrat, and William Perry, defense secretary under President Clinton.

"If America has reached a point where only one person has the ability in our great democracy to manage the Pentagon ... we're in deeper trouble than you think," he said. "I don't accept that."

Kerry said the argument that the nation needs stability in the war on terror essentially means sticking with a flawed policy.

"This notion that we have to continue with a policy that's wrong and taking us down the wrong track is absurd," he said.

Kerry said that responsibility for the abuse of prisoners in Iraq extends all the way to the Oval Office and that Bush must accept responsibility for setting a tone that allowed the abuse to take place.

"They dismiss the Geneva Conventions, starting in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, so that the status of prisoners both legal and moral becomes ambiguous at best," he said.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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