Kerry Urged To Offer Alternative Iraq Plan
From The Washington Times
By Donald Lambro
April 13, 2004
Sen. John Kerry's … reluctance to reveal an alternative to the administration's war strategy is fueling criticism...
"I haven't the faintest idea what his prescriptions in Iraq would be. …" said Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a national security scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution and a former State Department and National Security Council adviser.
"At some point, he is going to have to get serious if he is going to be taken seriously about how he would actually deal with the issue in a way that he as a patriotic American can support it. But he hasn't done that," Mr. Sonnenfeldt said. …
"He has said there is no easy way out … " said Michael O'Hanlon, a Kerry campaign supporter and a senior foreign-policy fellow at Brookings.
"But I do agree that Kerry could be a little more constructive and a little less negative in his tone," Mr. O'Hanlon said. …
[T]he Bush campaign is stepping up attacks on the senator's reluctance to say what he would do if elected president.
"Instead of showing the world and the enemies of freedom that America stands firmly behind the effort in Iraq, and is committed to victory, Kerry has made the political calculation to rail against the war on terror at every stop on the campaign trail without offering any credible alternative. Kerry has no plan for the war on terror, just personal political attacks," said Nicolle Devenish, the Bush campaign's chief spokesman. …
Some of the national news media also have begun to criticize him on the war.
"It was clear this week [Kerry] had no alternative plan for pacifying Iraq, beyond a vague notion that other nations should help out," the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
Kerry campaign advisers have been … divided on what his strategy on Iraq should be …
But Mr. Kerry's attacks on the war do not appear to have hurt Mr. Bush. An Ipsos-Public Affairs poll … released Friday …showed that 51 percent approve of the president's handling of the war on terrorism. …
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