NYT, pg1: 2 Iraq Views, 2 Campaigns

[DeepModem Mom]

2 Iraq Views, 2 Campaigns
By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: September 22, 2004


UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 - To hear President Bush and John Kerry argue bitterly in the past two days about the American mission in Iraq is to wonder if they are talking about the same war, or even the same country....

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Mr. Bush and his aides are determined to focus the campaign debate on the decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutal rule and make the argument that if Mr. Kerry had been in office for the past four years, the dictator would still be in his palace....

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Mr. Kerry is equally determined to take the Iraq debate in a different direction - one that focuses on the here and now, on the "arrogant and incompetent" management of the war since Mr. Hussein was ousted....

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....the president's political team is no longer so sure how the argument will play out. The campaign leadership was shaken by recent assertions by three senior Republican senators - Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and John McCain of Arizona - suggesting that the United States is facing deep trouble in Iraq, and that the White House may be in denial about the need for a new approach....But it is far from clear that Mr. Kerry is going to succeed at changing the terms of the debate, or that even if he does, he will overcome Mr. Bush's charge that he has flip-flopped on the wisdom of the invasion....

(Re. Kerry's Vietnam War dissent, the article quotes him as saying he dissented "because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do." It is pointed out that that dissent started Kerry's political career, and he is hoping it will have a similar effect now. Bush, the article says, is betting that "in the end voters will reward him for standing tough, even if chaos and mayhem fill the television screens between now and Nov. 2.")


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/politics/campaign/22assess.html