WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush pounded Sen. John Kerry over the war on terror and Iraq Monday in remarks retooled for the final stretch of the election.
Kerry, he said, has a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the enemy. A Kerry presidency, he said, would return the country to a "defensive, reactive mind-set."
"He says that, fighting terrorists in the Middle East, America has 'created terrorists where they did not exist.' This is his argument, that terrorists are somehow less dangerous or fewer in number if America avoids provoking them," Bush said.
"America is not to blame for terrorist hatred, and no retreat by America would appease them. We don't create terrorists by fighting them; we defeat the terrorists by fighting them."
Bush argued for an aggressive war against terrorists and for helping establish democracy in the Middle East to eliminate the causes of terrorism.
Bush's fresh attack came amid public opinion polls showing Bush and Kerry in a dead heat. To help gin up voters and symbolize what he considers the fundamental issue of the election -- the war on terror -- Bush had former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani join him in Colorado. Kerry was joined in Pennsylvania by former President Bill Clinton.
