From the Quad Cities Times, come the following quotes from Kerry (slightly re-ordered):
During his speech, Kerry warned against confusing the successes in Iraq with the war on terrorism. He accused President Bush of failing to keep his pledge to give firefighters and police on the front lines the resources they need to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.
“I will keep America’s promise to keep our communities and our country safe,” said Kerry, who has earned the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Kerry, who voted in favor of authorizing military strikes against Iraq, also criticized Bush for trying to link the justification for the Iraqi war to the war on terrorism and the search for Osama bin Laden.
Kerry said the country is better off now that a tyrant who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and has driven America to war twice has been apprehended.
“I know that most Americans agree that capturing [Saddam Hussein] has indeed eliminated threats to the United States and made us safer,” Kerry said at a police union hall in Pleasant Hill.
Let me get this straight. Kerry is saying that Bush is not fighting the war on terrorism properly, and Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. But he still says Saddam Hussein was a threat, because he killed lots of his own people, and - this is wonderful - we went to war with him. Not the other way round.
Oh, and how can Kerry say that the second war on Iraq was wrong, and then turn around and use it as a reason why Hussein was a threat?
As I've said before, I have yet to hear any of Dean's rivals actually explain what the danger to the US of Saddam Hussein still being at large in his spider-hole actually was. All I hear is people randomly calling Howard Dean a liar. That's not enough.
UPDATE: I've just found another quote from Kerry, this time from the Boston Globe.
Kerry also hammered Dean for citing the heightened terror alert as evidence that Hussein's capture did not make America safer.
"Americans won't be fooled into confusing the war on terror with the capture of Saddam Hussein," Kerry said. "It's George Bush who tries to trick the American people into confusing Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. And Democrats owe it to America to be better than that."
The sheer gall of taking a statement that says Saddam Hussein has nothing to do with the war on terror, and saying that it does, is so breathtaking that I don't know what to say.
