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Bush gave a very uplifting speech at the UN. He extolled the virtues of liberty, but Kerry was not pleased.
Kerry said Bush rushed into Iraq without the backing of allies, preparing a postwar plan, or properly equipping US forces -- ''None of which I would have done."
''Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," Kerry told a supportive audience assembled at New York University, downtown from where Bush is to address the United Nations General Assembly today. ''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."
He blamed Bush for ''colossal failures of judgment." ''This is stubborn incompetence," he said.
Ret. Gen. Tommy Franks responded:
"Senator Kerry's contradictions on Iraq are the wrong signal to send to our troops on the ground, to our coalition partners, to the Iraqi people and to the terrorists seeking our destruction. On the eve of Prime Minister Allawi's visit to the United States, Senator Kerry today said that America and the world are 'less secure' now that Saddam Hussein is out of power.
"The American people disagree and last December, so did Senator Kerry. At the time he said that those who believe the world was safer with Saddam Hussein in power 'don't have the judgment to be president.' I agree."