Oil debate to drive Kerry's talk here

By David Postman
Seattle Times chief political reporter

CHARLIE NEIBERGALL / AP Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., plays cards with staff members yesterday aboard his campaign plane near Washington. He was flying there after spending the weekend in Boston.

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Preparing for a trip to the Northwest and its highest-in-the-nation gas prices, Democrat John Kerry yesterday renewed a call for an investigation into an alleged White House-Saudi deal on oil production.

The call for a congressional investigation was part of a critique of President Bush's energy policy that Kerry outlined in an interview yesterday. The critique will be a focus during his three-day swing through Portland and Seattle.

While saving his harshest criticism for Bush, Kerry also said that in two terms, Democratic President Bill Clinton did not do enough to move America to energy independence.

In Seattle, Kerry will launch a new phase of his campaign. Beginning with a speech Thursday, the junior senator from Massachusetts is expected to campaign for 11 days solely on foreign policy and national security.

Kerry's campaign has been criticized by insiders and political observers for lacking a cohesive and consistent message. Now, as Bush tries to reshape the debate on the Iraq war with a series of speeches, Kerry will undertake the most disciplined weeks of his campaign, with formal speeches and town-hall meetings on the theme "Security and Strength for a New World."

John Kerry in town • Kerry is scheduled to arrive tonight from Portland. • He has one public event planned here. Wednesday at 9 a.m., he will be at Pier 62 to discuss energy policy. Tickets for reserved seating can be picked up at the Kerry campaign headquarters, 1848 Westlake Ave. N., third floor; or at state Democratic Party offices, 616 First Ave. General admission is also available; all tickets are free. • Kerry also will attend several fund-raisers and deliver a foreign-policy speech to an invitation-only gathering Thursday.

This will be Kerry's second trip to friendly Northwest territory in two weeks. He campaigned in Oregon last week.

He arrives in Portland today and flies to Seattle tonight. Here, he will hold fund-raisers, attend a public meeting to discuss oil prices and energy policy, and kick off the foreign-policy focus with an invitation-only speech at Boeing Field.

Kerry calls for investigation

In an interview yesterday, Kerry reacted to the weekend reports that Saudi Arabia was planning to increase oil production. He said Congress should look into a report that the Saudi ambassador promised to keep oil prices stable in the event of shortages caused by the Iraq war, boosting the president's chance of re-election.

In his recently published book, "Plan of Attack," about the White House planning of the Iraq war, investigative reporter Bob Woodward briefly described such a deal. When the book was released last month, Kerry said if that were true, it would be "outrageous and unacceptable to the people of America."

In TV appearances, though, Woodward has said Kerry made more out of the issue than the short passage in his book warranted.

"Senator Kerry took what was in the book and called it a secret deal, I believe. And that, I think that was not in my book and not in the facts as we know them now," Woodward said on FOX News.

Yesterday, Kerry acknowledged that an investigation by a Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely, but said the questions raised by Woodward need to be "fleshed out."

"Didn't Bob Woodward write about the Saudi deal some time ago, so maybe this is the Saudi deal come home to roost," Kerry said. "I mean, if all of a sudden the Saudis are suddenly upping production and nobody else is, it certainly raises questions."

He wouldn't comment on whether he thought foreign governments would try to influence the U.S. presidential election.

"I think the American people are pretty smart about seeing through anybody else's efforts, and I wouldn't ever want that, and I don't think President Bush would ever want that," Kerry said. "This is our business, and we have to keep it that way."

Bush draws criticism on oil

Kerry accused Bush of not pressuring oil producers enough to maintain supplies.

"The American people are paying much higher energy prices because this administration has refused to move the way it should have months ago to push OPEC to produce," Kerry said.

Kerry said he believes the United States has lost leverage with members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries because "a lot of the leaders over there are not very happy" with U.S. policy in the Middle East.

"I think they're very unhappy with the impact of the war in Iraq, with what's happening in the prisons, in the way in which the president has not seemed to be engaged in trying to legitimatize a Palestinian authority to be able to negotiate for peace with Israel," Kerry said.

Middle East leaders, he said, don't see Bush as "an honest broker."

'Election-year politics'

A Bush campaign spokeswoman said yesterday that Kerry appears more interested in "election-year politics than real progress in lowering the price of gas."

"John Kerry accused the president of not jawboning oil-producing countries to open the spigots and now accuses him of a conspiracy when they do increase production," Bush spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said.

She also said Kerry voted in the Senate against some Bush proposals that would have allowed the United States to become less dependent on foreign oil.

To help lower gas prices, Kerry supports diverting some oil now being added to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Some Democrats have gone further and said oil should be pumped out of the reserve, but Kerry hasn't supported that and said yesterday, "I'm not there yet."

He also said the federal requirements that oil companies produce many blends of gasoline for different cities drive up prices and need to be coordinated better.

Kerry will arrive in Seattle talking about energy policy and tie it closely to the foreign-policy phase to be launched here Thursday.

"We need to start building energy independence so we're truly secure," he said. "And Americans understand that as long as other countries hold our economic future in their hands, we're in trouble."

David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com

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