[CS-FSLUG] PD: REVIEW & OUTLOOK

[Fred Miller]

Wall Street Journal

      REVIEW & OUTLOOK
 
       Kerry on Iraq
       The candidate betrays his pre-9/11 mentality. 
       Sunday, August 15, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
 
       Debate has been raging over John Kerry's Vietnam service, not least
on our pages. John O'Neill, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for
Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," first wrote
here in May, while Kerry supporter and Vietnam vet Jim Rassmann told his
story in an op-ed on Tuesday.
 
       We'll try to sort this history out another day, because this week
we think the bigger news is what Mr. Kerry has been saying about the
future of Iraq. For a while it looked as if the Senator wanted to avoid
any debate on that subject by hewing close to President Bush's policy. But
under questioning from the press and prodding from the White House, he is
beginning to open up, and the results are disquieting. The more he talks
about it, the more the dovish, "come home, America" instincts of his long
Senate voting record are emerging.
 
       On Monday, for example, Mr. Kerry finally gave an answer to the
question he had been ducking for weeks: He acknowledged he would still
have voted for the October 2002 Iraq war resolution even if he had known
we wouldn't find WMD -- but only as a way to give the President more clout
to negotiate. In other words, he would have wanted the authority to go to
war but without any intention of actually fighting it. How this admission
will make the Kim Jong Ils and Ayatollahs of the world more pliable is
hard to fathom.
  
       Even more disturbing, Mr. Kerry is now talking openly about
bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq. He offered the hint of such a plan
during his Boston speech, but now he's putting a timetable on it, saying
he'd begin the drawdown within six months of his inauguration. "I believe
that within a year from now, we could significantly reduce American forces
in Iraq, and that's my plan," he said this week. This followed his
comments last week that "we're going to get our troops home where they
belong."

       Mr. Kerry says he would do this by replacing U.S. troops with
foreign ones. But what if that doesn't happen, regardless of how well he
speaks French? The message that will be heard in Baghdad is that Mr. Kerry
is planning a date-certain U.S. retreat. Such a pledge only emboldens the
Baathist insurgents to fight on, rather than accept Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi's offer of amnesty. And it encourages the terrorists to believe
that their strategy of car-bombing has worked to weaken U.S. resolve after
all.
 
       Even more destructive is the effect Mr. Kerry's promise could have
on ordinary Iraqis. It signals to those who are risking their lives by
fighting the insurgents that the U.S. might not stay until stability is
restored. It also subverts his promise to secure more international help.
What country would want to sign on to Iraq if the U.S. is headed for the
exits?
 
       All of this deserves to be debated in the Presidential election,
and yesterday Vice President Dick Cheney specifically pounced on Mr.
Kerry's recent remark that he would wage "a more sensitive war on terror."
Mr. Cheney noted that "America has been in too many wars for any of our
wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. ... The men who
beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our
sensitivity."
 
       There's a deadly serious issue here. Mr. Kerry seems to be saying
that he disagrees with the post-9/11 U.S. policy to go on the offensive
against terrorists by taking the battle to them on their turf, far from
American shores. U.S. troops, he says, "belong" at home. But if terrorists
conclude they have successfully pushed U.S. troops out of Iraq, they will
only escalate their attacks on Americans elsewhere, including here at
home. The Kerry strategy is one of perpetual and vulnerable defense.

       Last month's nominating convention in Boston was designed to
persuade voters that Mr. Kerry could be trusted as commander-in-chief in a
post-9/11 world. We'd like to think it's true. But every time he speaks
these days, the Senator suggests that his real security instincts are
closer to the U.S. policy of September 10.

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