^{"Mr. President, I believe such thinking is dangerous, and I believe it is flawed because it requires us to surrender the most important responsibility of the Congress: The power to make war. This is not a vote about sending a message. That message was already on the table. This is a vote about whether or not to put ourselves in a smaller box where war may become more likely, whether it needs to or not, and where we will have nothing further to say about it. For us in Congress now, this is not a vote about a message. It is a vote about war because whether or not the President exercises his power, we will have no further say after this vote. But voting to keep sanctions and diplomacy is not a vote against war if all other options fail because we continue to hold that lever in our hands."}

^{"We must recognize that there is no indication that Saddam Hussein has any intention of relenting. So we have an obligation of enormous consequence, an obligation to guarantee that Saddam Hussein cannot ignore the United Nations. He cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a matter about which there should be any debate whatsoever in the Security Council, or, certainly, in this Nation. If he remains obdurate, I believe that the United Nations must take, and should authorize immediately, whatever steps are necessary to force him to relent--and that the United States should support and participate in those steps.}

^{We must not presume that these conclusions automatically will be accepted by every one of our allies, some of which have different interests both in the region and elsewhere, or will be of the same degree of concern to them that they are to the U.S. But it is my belief that we have the ability to persuade them of how serious this is and that the U.N. must not be diverted or bullied." (Source: thomas.loc.gov) [full text]}

^{“Well, John, you're correct that this resolution is less than we would have liked. I don't think anybody can deny that we would have liked it to have threatened force and we would have liked it to carry the term serious consequences will flow. On the other hand, the coalition is together. I mean, the fact is there is a unanimous statement by the security council and the United Nations that there has to be immediate, unrestricted, unconditional access to the sites. That's very strong language. And it also references the underlying resolution on which the use of force is based. So clearly the allies may not like it, and I think that's our great concern -- where's the backbone of Russia, where's the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity -- but in a sense, they're now climbing into a box and they will have enormous difficulty not following up on this if there is not compliance by Iraq” (Source: U.S. Newswire)}

^{"The administration is making it clear that they don't believe that they even need the U.N. Security Council to sign off on a material breach because the finding of material breach was made by Mr. Butler. So furthermore, I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests. And clearly it is not just our best interests, it is in the best interests of the world to make it clear to Saddam Hussein that he's not going to get away with a breach of the '91 agreement that he's got to live up to, which is allowing inspections and dismantling his weapons and allowing us to know that he has dismantled his weapons. That's the price he pays for invading Kuwait and starting a war." (Source: U.S. Newswire)}

^{“Well, John, frankly neither you nor I know that we did nothing. I don’t know that for a fact. We certainly didn’t publicly, I agree, but I don’t know that we did nothing. But it’s not the first time France has been very difficult, as the congressman said. I think a lot of us are very disappointed that the French haven’t joined us in a number of other efforts with respect to China, with respect to other issues in Asia and elsewhere and also in Europe.” (Source: WorldNetDaily.com)}

^{“So we’ve got a major set of choices to make here. And we’d better make them. We’ve been sliding into a fundamental policy of containment, which I share with Major Ritter the notion is disastrous to our overall proliferation interests and disastrous with respect to the Middle East and our interests with respect to Saddam Hussein and Iraq . But we have to make a decision whether we’re prepared to do what is necessary, and I mean to the point of a sustained targeting of the regime; not the Iraqi people, but the regime.”}

^{BORGER: Do we have any information that chemical and biological attacks were part of this [September 11th]? We got news this morning about the crop-dusting manuals.
Sen. KERRY: No, at least I don't and not to my knowledge do any of my colleagues. But it is something that we know--for instance, Saddam Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and there is some evidence of their [terrorists] efforts to try to secure these kinds of weapons and even test them. That's why it's so vital that we get the global community to be part of this effort to begin to make their [terrorists] lives miserable. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{KERRY: I think we ought to put the heat on Saddam Hussein. I've said that for a number of years, Bill. I criticized the Clinton administration for backing off of the inspections when Ambassador Butler was giving us strong evidence that we needed to continue. I think we need to put the pressure on no matter what the evidence is about September 11. (Source: jim geraghty)}

^{O'REILLY: How would you put enough pressure on him to open up inspections again?
KERRY: Well, I'll reinvigorate that process as step number one, and I think the administration is now suddenly starting to move in that direction. I think you have to work our allies sufficiently to pull that component of the effort back together. But the second thing I would do, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it, is back opposition more openly, and do it in a way that begins to put a counterinsurgency in the country itself... The important thing is that Saddam Hussein and the world knows that we think Saddam Hussein is essentially out of synch with the times. He is and has acted like a terrorist, and he has engaged in activities that are unacceptable.}

^{O'REILLY: But I -- you know, I still don't see the hammer that's going to convince him to open anything up.}

^{KERRY: The hammer, ultimately, will be the evidence that we uncover as we go further down the trail that shows his support for terrorism and begins to build the coalition even more strongly. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{KING: What about enhancing this war, Senator Kerry. What are your thoughts on going on further than Afghanistan, all terrorist places.}

^{KERRY: Oh, I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue, for instance, Saddam Hussein. I think we . . .}

^{KING: We should go to Iraq?}

^{KERRY: Well, that -- what do you and how you choose to do it, we have a lot of options. Absent smoking gun evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the immediate events of September 11, the president doesn't have the authorization to proceed forward there. But we clearly are he ought to proceed to put pressure on him with respect to the weapons of mass destruction. I think we should be supporting an opposition. There are other ways for us, clandestinely and otherwise, to put enormous pressure on him and I think we should do it. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{MATTHEWS: Do you think that the problem we have with Iraq is real and it can be reduced to a diplomatic problem? Can we get this guy to accept inspections of his weapons of mass destruction, potentially, and get past a possible war with him?}

^{KERRY: Outside chance, Chris. Could it be done? The answer is yes. But he would view himself only as buying time and playing a game, in my judgment. Do we have to go through that process? The answer is yes. We're precisely doing that. And I think that's what Colin Powell did today...}

^{MATTHEWS: Call his bluff.}

^{KERRY: Well, if it is a bluff. I think you have to begin there, no matter what. Whether Saddam Hussein began that process today or we begin it, you have to put the challenge of the inspections on the line. Why? Because that's the outstanding issue unresolved from the war. That's what he agreed to do, and that's where we left off with Ambassador Butler and his -- his rejecting it. I mean, it's astounding to me, frankly, that our country, as well as the United Nations, have allowed these years to go by with...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.}

^{KERRY: ... with just a simple stonewalling. It's just amazing.}

^{MATTHEWS: Well, good boys don't -- good guys, as you know, don't always win. And for all those years after the Persian Gulf war, President Bush and the world tried to get this guy -- this guy -- having let him off the hook in 1991, to make sure he didn't produce any weapons of mass destruction. The world got bored. The world got weak. They softened up. We stuck to it. Eventually we -- under President Clinton, we pulled back. What assures you now we have the -- the toughness to go in and insist on weapons inspections?}

^{KERRY: September 11. That's it, September 11. I mean, that's changed the dynamic of this country, and I think people's perceptions of what people are willing to do. And when you look at what we've been finding in Afghanistan, when you look at what our intelligence community is laying on the table for us in the Senate and the House to contemplate, there's no question in my mind that Saddam Hussein has to be dealt with. Now, the question is how? I don't think it begins with a military invasion at all. I don't think that even has to be on the table. I believe his regime -- he can be overthrown. I think it can happen internally. I think a lot of people are prepared to help. And I think we have to begin that process.}

^{MATTHEWS: If the president called you in and briefed you, and said, "As the senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I'm going to tell you something. Tomorrow morning, we're going in big into Baghdad. We're going to drop 50,000 troops in there. We're coming in with heavy armaments. We're going to take that guy out. We're going to remove that government, put in one that -- that we like, like we did in Afghanistan," what would you say?}

^{KERRY: Tomorrow morning?}

^{MATTHEWS: Yeah.}

^{KERRY: If he was going to do it tomorrow morning?}

^{MATTHEWS: Yeah.}

^{KERRY: I'd say, "I think you're making a mistake, Mr. President, just to do it that way. I think we can do it without that kind of risk or loss of life or with the down side that might occur with respect to other relationships we have in the region." I mean, we have Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the crisis with Israel-Palestinian relations at this moment, the peace process, lack thereof and, of course, the very fragile situation for Jordan. That's just not a wise first move. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{O'REILLY: One of the reasons many in Europe are angry with the United States, as we said, is that it is clear President Bush is going to go after Saddam Hussein. And Senator Kerry, who is one of the few people on the Hill who felt that the Gulf War in 1991 could have been handled a little bit differently. He voted against the military action because he wanted more time for Americans to come together about the war and things like that. Senator Kerry joins us now from Washington. The ambassador to Germany is basically saying what most people in Europe are saying, senator. They're afraid. They're afraid that if we go after Saddam Hussein, and all the Arabs get crazy, and the whole thing blows up, that Europe's going to take the brunt of this. I said you can't negotiate with tyrants out of fear. How do you feel about it?}

^{SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I agree with you. … I think we've all reached a judgment that obviously the United States has to protect our national security interests. And we have to do what we think is right. I do think the European demonstrations are larger than just Iraq. I think they're concerned about other issues, like global warming. They're concerned about proliferation. They're concerned about -- I mean, there are a whole host of issues. So I think it's a more confused bag than just Iraq, but I think they're wrong on Iraq. I mean, plain and simply, the United States will have to do what we need to do, and our best judgment to protect our national security. And quite frankly, if we do what we need to do, it will also wind up protecting Europe.}

^{O'REILLY: Yes, I mean, that's right. And Europe has lost a lot of credibility. Let's face it. .. we're carrying the ball for these people time and time and time again.}

^{KERRY: I think a lot of Americans feel that way. And I think a lot of Europeans are -- I mean, I've talked to many people over there, who wish the leadership was more willing to stand up on this. I think -- you know, there is a sense that the United States acts unilaterally sometimes. I think there's an envy. One can feel that envy. A lack of consultation. There was even in Kosovo a very significant backlash because of the degree to which the United States had to lead. And even the members of NATO felt somewhat disgruntled by the fact that even within NATO, they weren't able to, in a sense, keep up. So I think there's a certain amount of backlash from all of our success. What we need to do is manage that effectively. And I think some of the other initiatives that we haven't been frankly been very good on, like global warming, are not handling it very effectively. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{"The Taliban are not the target. They were a collateral target. The target is and always has been al-Qaeda. And al-Qaeda, a thousand strong, was gathered in one single mountain area, Tora Bora, and we turned to Afghans, who a week earlier had been fighting for the other side, and said, "Hey, you guys go up there in the mountains and go after the world's number-one terrorist and criminal who just killed 3,000-plus Americans." I think that was an enormous mistake. I think the Tora Bora operation was a failed military operation, which resulted then in Anaconda, which also did not do the job. And the fact is that the prime target, al-Qaeda, has dispersed and in many ways is more dangerous than it was when it was in the mountains of Tora Bora." (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{“I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq – Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991.” (Source: jim geraghty)}

^{"If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act."}

^{“I would disagree with John McCain that it's the actual weapons of mass destruction he may use against us, it's what he may do in another invasion of Kuwait or in a miscalculation about the Kurds or a miscalculation about Iran or particularly Israel. Those are the things that--that I think present the greatest danger. He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It's the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat. But I also think--and--and this is another very--you haven't heard this, I think, in the course of the last week, we cannot allow this discussion of Iraq to hide the original purpose of our mobilization, which is Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, and we particularly cannot allow it to shift off of the debate in this country a huge number of unattended issues. Our economy is hurting badly.” (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{"With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection teams previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all of the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?}

^{"Does he do all of these things because he wants to live by international standards of behavior? Because he respects international law? Because he is a nice guy underneath it all and the world should trust him?}

^{"It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. He has already created a stunning track record of miscalculation. He miscalculated an 8-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's responses to it. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending Scuds into Israel. He miscalculated his own military might. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his plight. He miscalculated in attempting an assassination of a former President of the United States. And he is miscalculating now America's judgments about his miscalculations.}

^{"All those miscalculations are compounded by the rest of history. A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel."}

^{"In the wake of September 11, who among us can say, with any certainty, to anybody, that those weapons might not be used against our troops or against allies in the region? Who can say that this master of miscalculation will not develop a weapon of mass destruction even greater--a nuclear weapon--then reinvade Kuwait, push the Kurds out, attack Israel, any number of scenarios to try to further his ambitions to be the pan-Arab leader or simply to confront in the region, and once again miscalculate the response, to believe he is stronger because he has those weapons?" (Source: thomas.loc.gov) [full text]}

^{“I believe the record of Saddam Hussein’s ruthless, reckless breach of international values and standards of behavior is cause enough for the world community to hold him accountable by use of force if necessary.”}

^{Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that "a failure of diplomacy of a massive order" by the Bush administration has left the country on the brink of war with Iraq, with an unnecessarily small group of fighting partners, facing criticism from the United Nations and longstanding allies, and without the strongest possible support of the American people. … "It's the way they have conducted the diplomacy that has compounded this problem, split the UN, split the NATO, left the world wondering with questions, engaged in a more preemptive effort than was necessary," Kerry said. "We could have moved from a position of strength, in my judgment, and I think it represents a failure of diplomacy of a massive order, and that is what war is: War is the failure of diplomacy." (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a likely presidential candidate, said the tape "certainly underscores the incompleteness of that task." Alluding to criticism from some Democrats that Bush is able to focus on only one task at a time, Kerry said the bin Laden tape "certainly heightens suspicions that they are overfocused on one [Iraq] and made mistakes on the other." (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{"They are really breaking a bond with the American people by proceeding so hell-bent-for-leather, we've-got-to-go, no matter what," he said, "rather than doing the proper kind of diplomatic background of education that gives them legitimacy." … Kerry argued that the Bush administration must try harder to build a consensus among world leaders before trying to topple the Iraqi regime. He said Bush also should bolster any case for war by telling Americans why the threat from Hussein is urgent. "I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat," the senator said. "I do not want to tolerate this man, unfettered, unrestricted, developing weapons of mass destruction. But I do not believe the threat is so imminent today that we have to rush to war." (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{While calling for the United Nations to intensify pressure on Iraq to disarm, Kerry urged Bush to give more time to the U.N. inspections process that the administration has increasingly condemned as inadequate. "The United States should never go to war because it wants to; the United States should go to war because we have to," Kerry said at Georgetown University. "And we don't have to until we have exhausted the remedies available, built legitimacy and earned the consent of the American people, absent, of course, an imminent threat requiring urgent action."}

^{“If You Don’t Believe . . . Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn’t vote for me.”}

^{“All of us know that just days from now our country may be at war with Iraq. If war comes then we must and will unite behind the brave young Americans who are risking their lives. I firmly believe that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator who must be disarmed. But I also believe that a heavy-handed approach will leave us to carry the burden almost alone.” (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{"I know what it is like to fight in a war when you lose legitimacy and consent," Kerry said. "And I believe the United States should never go to war without that legitimacy, without that consent." After a key applause line in Kerry's stump speech -- "The United States of America should never go to war because it wants to; we should go to war because we have to" -- a person in the crowd shouted: "Then why did you vote for it?" (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{MR. RUSSERT: By voting in October the way you did, contrary to what your colleague Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts voted, who said it was in effect giving the president too much authority, yielding our constitutional authority to the Senate to declare war. Robert Byrd, a Democrat, said it was giving the president a blank check. Do you regret giving the president authority way back in October of 2002?}

^{SEN. KERRY: Tim, I have enormous respect for both Senator Kennedy, my friend and my colleague, who I'm proud is supporting me in this race, and Robert Byrd, who's one of the most eloquent, capable people in the Senate. But let me tell you this. I disagree with them on that. The president of the United States had the inherent authority of the presidency. And if he wanted to go, he would have gone and could have gone anyway merely to protect and defend the interests of the United States. And the fact is in the resolution that we passed we did not empower the president to do regime change, we empowered him only with respect to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations. Now, the president, as we saw with Bill Clinton, had the power--President Clinton went to Kosovo without any authority from Congress. President Clinton went to Haiti without any authority from Congress. The president has the inherent authority, he had the authority anyway, and I believed, as Joe Biden believed, as Hillary Clinton believed, as Tom Harkin believed, and many thoughtful people, that by voting the way we did, we were getting the United Nations and the inspections in place and we could--and the president made his word to us that they would build that coalition and do it properly. The president, in my judgment, broke his word to us and to the American people and we have a difficult situation on our hands. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{First, we must restore a foreign policy that is true to our ideals. We will defend our national security and maintain a military that is the strongest armed force on earth. But if I am president, I will never forget that even a nation as powerful as the United States of America needs to make some friends in this world, and I will do that. Overseas, George Bush has led and misled us on a course at odds with 200 years of our history. He has squandered the goodwill of the world after September 11th, and he has lost the respect and the influence that we need to make our country safe. We are seeing the peril in Iraq everyday. I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations. I believe that was right, but it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition and with no plan to win the peace. So long as Iraq remains an American intervention and not an international undertaking, we will face increasing danger and mounting casualties. Being flown to an aircraft carrier and saying, "Mission accomplished" doesn't end a war. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{“Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror. And therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that. And I disagree with the Governor [Howard Dean].”}

^{“Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture, don’t have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.”}

^{MATTHEWS: Do you think you belong to that category of candidates who more or less are unhappy with this war, the way it's been fought, along with General Clark, along with Howard Dean and not necessarily in companionship politically on the issue of the war with people like Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt? Are you one of the anti-war candidates?}

^{KERRY: I am -- Yes, in the sense that I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely.Do I think this president violated his promises to America? Yes, I do, Chris. Was there a way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable? You bet there was, and we should have done it right. (Source: johnkerry.com)}

^{“The final victory in the war on terror depends on a victory in the war of ideas, much more than the war on the battlefield. And the war - not the war, I don’t want to use that terminology. The engagement of economies, the economic transformation, the transformation to modernity of a whole bunch of countries that have been avoiding the future. And that future’s coming at us like it or not, in the context of terror, and in the context of failed states, and dysfunctional economies, and all that goes with that.” (Source: www.nytimes.com)}

^{"I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war."}

Response to President's question about how he would have voted if he knew then what he knows now, Kerry confirmed that he would still have voted for Use of Force Resolution.

^{SEN. JOHN KERRY: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it's the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively. I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has."}

^{I am really honored to be here at New York University, at NYU Wagner, one of the great urban universities in America. Not just in New York, but in the world. This election is about choices. The most important choices a president makes are about protecting America, at home and around the world. A president's first obligation is to make America safer, stronger and truer to our ideals.}

^{Only a few blocks from here, three years ago, the events of September 11th remind every American of that obligation. That day brought to our shores the defining struggle of our times: the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. And it made clear that our most important task is to fight and to win the war on terrorism. [snip]}

^{In fighting the war on terrorism my principles are straightforward. The terrorists are beyond reason. We must destroy them. As president I will do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to defeat our enemies. But billions of people around the world, yearning for a better life, are open to America's ideals. We must reach them.}

^{To win, America must be strong and America must be smart. The greatest threat that we face is the possibility of Al Qaida or other terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons.}

^{To prevent that from happening we have to call on the totality of America's strength: strong alliances to help us stop the world's most lethal weapons from falling into the most dangerous hands; a powerful military, transformed to meet the threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction; and all of America's power -- our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, our appeal to the values, the values of Americans, and to connect them to the values of other people around the world -- each of which is critical to making America more secure and to preventing a new generation of terrorists from emerging.}

^{We owe it to the American people to have a real debate about the choices President Bush has made, and the choices I would make and have made, to fight and win the war on terror.}

^{That means that we must have a great and honest debate on Iraq. The president claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy. Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and from our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.}

^{This month, we passed a cruel milestone: more than 1,000 Americans lost in Iraq. Their sacrifice reminds us that Iraq remains overwhelmingly an American burden. Nearly 90 percent of the troops and nearly 90 percent of the casualties are American. Despite the president's claims, this is not a grand coalition.}

^{Our troops have served with extraordinary bravery and skill and resolve. Their service humbles all of us. I visited with some of them in the hospitals and I am stunned by their commitment, by their sense of duty, their patriotism. When I speak to them, when I look into the eyes of their families, I know this: We owe them the truth about what we have asked them to do and what is still to be done.}

^{In June, the president declared, The Iraqi people have their country back. And just last week he told us, This country is headed toward democracy; freedom is on the march. But the administration's own official intelligence estimate, given to the president last July, tells a very different story.}

^{According to press reports, the intelligence estimate totally contradicts what the president is saying to the American people and so do the facts on the ground. Security is deteriorating for us and for the Iraqis. Forty-two Americans died in Iraq in June, the month before the handover. But 54 died in July, 66 in August and already 54 halfway through September. And more than 1,100 Americans were wounded in August; more than in any other month since the invasion.}

^{We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever-widening war zone. In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they attacked 2,700 times; a 400 percent increase. Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra and parts of Iraq are now no-go zones, breeding grounds for terrorists, who are free to plot and to launch attacks against our soldiers. The radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is accused of complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in suburbs of Baghdad than the prime minister. Violence against Iraqis, from bombings to kidnappings to intimidation, is on the rise.}

^{Basic living conditions are also deteriorating. Yes, there has been some progress. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our soldiers and civilians in Iraq, schools, shops and hospitals have been opened in certain places. In parts of Iraq, normalcy actually prevails. But most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to be able to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives. So they're sitting on the fence, instead of siding with us against the insurgents. That is the truth, the truth that the commander in chief owes to our troops and to the American people.}

^{Now, I will say to you, it is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But it is essential if you want to correct the course and do what's right for those troops, instead of repeating the same old mistakes over and over again. I know this dilemma firsthand. I saw firsthand what happens when pride or arrogance take over from rational decision-making. And after serving in a war, I returned home to offer my own personal views of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to speak truth to power. And we still do.}

^{Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in Hell. But that was not -- that was not, in and of itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction that we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.}

^{Now, the president has said that he miscalculated in Iraq, and that it was a catastrophic success.}

^{The first and most fundamental mistake was the president's failure to tell the truth to the American people. He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war, and he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens. By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded. His two main rationales, weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaida-September 11th connection, have both been proved false by the president's own weapons inspectors and by the 9/11 Commission. And just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged those facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the Earth is flat.}

^{The president also failed to level with the American people about what it would take to prevail in Iraq. He didn't tell us that well over 100,000 troops would be needed for years, not months. He didn't tell us that he wouldn't take the time to assemble a genuine, broad, strong coalition of allies. He didn't tell us that the cost would exceed $200 billion. He didn't tell us that even after paying such a heavy price, success was far from assured. And America will pay an even heavier price for the president's lack of candor.}

^{At home, the American people are less likely to trust this administration if it needs to summon their support to meet real and pressing threats to our security.}

<sup>In the dark days of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. Acheson explained the situation to French President de Gaulle. Then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos as proof. De Gaulle waved him away, saying, The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me. How many world leaders have that same trust in America's president today? This president's failure to tell the truth to us and to the world before the war has been exceeded by fundamental errors of judgment during and after the war.

The president now admits to miscalculations in Iraq. Miscalculations: This is one of the greatest underestimates in recent American history.

His miscalculations were not the equivalent of accounting errors. They were colossal failures of judgment, and judgment is what we look for a president.

And this is all the more stunning, because we're not talking about 20/20 hindsight, we're not talking about Monday morning quarterbacking. Before the war, before he chose to go to war, bipartisan congressional hearings, major outside studies and even some in his own administration, predicted virtually every problem that we face in Iraq today.

The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible and real consequences.

The administration told us we would be greeted as liberators; they were wrong. They told us not to worry about the looting or the sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure; they were wrong. They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots; they were tragically wrong.

They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to build political legitimacy; they were wrong. They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country, and a police force and an army to secure it; they were wrong.

In Iraq, this administration has consistently overpromised and underperformed. And this policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, by an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence.

And the president has held no one accountable, including himself.

In fact, the only officials -- the only officials who've lost their jobs over Iraq were the ones who told the truth.

Economic adviser Larry Lindsey said it would cost as much as $200 billion. Pretty good calculation. He was fired.

After the successful entry into Baghdad, George Bush was offered help from the U.N., and he rejected it, stiff-armed them, decided to go it alone. He even prohibited nations from participating in reconstruction efforts because they weren't part of the original coalition, pushing reluctant countries even further away. And as we continue to fight this war almost alone, it is hard to estimate how costly that arrogant decision really was.

Can anyone seriously say this president has handled Iraq in a way that makes America stronger in the war on terrorism? By any measure, by any measure, the answer is no.

Nuclear dangers have mounted across the globe. The international terrorist club has expanded. Radicalism in the Middle East is on the rise. We have divided our friends and united our enemies. And our standing in the world is at an all-time low.

Think about it for a minute. Consider where we were and where we are.

After the events of September 11th, we had an opportunity to bring our country and the world together in a legitimate struggle against terrorists. On September 12th, headlines and newspapers abroad declared that, We are all Americans now.

But through his policy in Iraq, the president squandered that moment and, rather than isolating the terrorists, left America isolated from the world.

We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and posed no imminent threat to our security.

The president's policy in Iraq took our attention and our resources away from other more serious threats to America, threats like North Korea, which actually has weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear arsenal, and is building more right now under this president's watch; the emerging nuclear danger of Iran; the tons and kilotons of unsecured chemical and nuclear weapons in Russia; and the increasing instability in Afghanistan.

Today, warlords again control much of that country, the Taliban is regrouping, opium production is at an all-time high and the Al Qaida leadership still plots and plans, not only there, but in 60 other nations.

Instead of using U.S. forces, we relied on warlords, who one week earlier had been fighting on the other side, to go up in the mountains to capture Osama bin Laden when he was cornered. He slipped away.

We then diverted our focus and our forces from the hunt for those who were responsible for September 11th in order to invade Iraq.

We know now that Iraq played no part. We knew then on September 11th. And it had no operational ties to Al Qaida.

The president's policy in Iraq precipitated the very problem that he said he was trying to prevent.

Secretary of State Powell admits that Iraq was not a magnet for international terrorists before their war; now it is, and they are operating against our troops.

Iraq is becoming a sanctuary for a new generation of terrorists who could someday hit the United States of America.

And we know that while Iraq was a source of friction, it was not previously a source of serious disagreement with our allies in Europe and countries in the Muslim world.

The president's policy in Iraq divided our oldest alliance and sent our standing in the Muslim world into freefall.

Three years after 9/11, even in many moderate Muslim countries, like Jordan, Morocco and Turkey, Osama bin Laden is more popular than the United States of America.

Two years ago, Congress was right to give the president the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This president, any president, would have needed that threat of force to act effectively. This president misused that authority.

The power entrusted to the president purposefully gave him a strong hand to play in the international community. The idea was simple: We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and we would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam, disarm or be disarmed.

A month before the war, President Bush told the nation, If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full power of the United States military. We will act with allies at our side and we will prevail.

Instead, the president rushed to war, without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work. He went purposefully, by choice, without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He acted by choice, without making sure that our troops even had enough body armor. And he plunged ahead by choice, without understanding or preparing for the consequences of postwar. None of which I would have done.

Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again the same way.

How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying to America that if we know there was no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaida, the United States should have invaded Iraq?

My answer: resoundingly, no, because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe.

Now the president is looking for a reason, a new reason to hang his hat on -- it's the capability to acquire weapons.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow Americans, that was not the reason given to the nation, that was not the reason the Congress voted on. That is not a reason today; it is an excuse.

KERRY: Thirty-five to 40 countries have greater capability to build a nuclear bomb than Iraq did in 2003. Is President Bush saying we should invade all of them?

I would have personally concentrated our power and resources on defeating global terrorism and capturing Osama bin Laden.

I would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure and isolate Saddam Hussein -- who was weak and getting weaker -- so that he would pose no threat to the region or to America.

The president's insistence that he would do the same thing all over again in Iraq is a clear warning for the future. And it makes the choice in this election clear: more of the same with President Bush or a new, smarter direction with John Kerry that makes our troops and America safer. That's the choice.

It is time, at long last, to ask the questions and insist on the answers from the commander in chief about his serious misjudgments and what they tell us about his administration and the president himself.

In Iraq, we have a mess on our hands. But we cannot just throw up our hands, we cannot afford to see Iraq become a permanent source of terror that will endanger America's security for years to come.

All across this country, people ask me and others, what we should do now every stop of the way. From the first time I spoke about this in the Senate, I have set out a specific set of recommendations from day one, from the first debate until this moment. I have set out specific steps of how we should not and how we should proceed.

But over and over, when this administration has been presented with a reasonable alternative, they have rejected it and gone their own way. This is stubborn incompetence.

Five months ago in Fulton, Missouri, I said that the president was close to his last chance to get it right. Every day this president makes it more difficult to deal with Iraq, harder than it was five months ago, harder than it was a year ago, a year and a half ago.

It's time to recognize what is and what is not happening in Iraq today and we must act with urgency.

Just this weekend, a leading Republican, Chuck Hagel, said that, We're in deep trouble in Iraq. It doesn't add up to a pretty picture, he said, and we're going to have to look at a recalibration of our policy.

Republican leaders like Dick Lugar and John McCain have offered similar assessments.

We need to turn the page and make a fresh start in Iraq.

First, the president has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone.

Last spring, after too many months of delay, after reluctance to take the advice of so many of us, the president finally went back to the U.N., and it passed Resolution 1546. It was the right thing to do, but it was late.

That resolution calls on U.N. members to help in Iraq by providing troops, trainers for Iraq's security forces and a special brigade to protect the U.N. mission, and more financial assistance and real debt relief.

But guess what? Three months later, not a single country has answered that call, and the president acts as if it doesn't matter.

And of the 13 billion that was previously pledged to Iraq by other countries, only $1.2 billion has been delivered.

The president should convene a summit meeting of the world's major powers and of Iraq's neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly, and he should insist that they make good on the U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific but critical roles in training Iraqi security personnel and in securing Iraqi borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.

Now, is this more difficult today? You bet it is. It's more difficult today because the president hasn't been doing it from the beginning. And I and others have repeatedly recommended this from the very beginning.

Delay has only made it harder. After insulting allies and shredding alliances, this president may not have the trust and the confidence to bring others to our side in Iraq.

But I'll tell you, we cannot hope to succeed unless we rebuild and lead strong alliances so that other nations share the burden with us. That is the only way to be successful in the end.

Second, the president must get serious about training Iraqi security forces.

Last February, Secretary Rumsfeld claimed that -- claimed that more than 210,000 Iraqis were in uniform. This is the public statement to America.

Well, guess what, America? Neither number bears any relationship to the truth.

For example, just 5,000 Iraqi soldiers have been fully trained by the administration's own minimal standards. And of the 35,000 police now in uniform, not one -- not one has completed a 24-week field training program.

Is it any wonder that Iraqi security forces can't stop the insurgency or provide basic law and order?

The president should urgently expand the security forces' training program inside and outside of Iraq. He should strengthen the vetting of recruits, double the classroom training time, require the follow-on field training. He should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He should press our NATO allies to open training centers in their countries.

And he should stop misleading the American people with phony, inflated numbers and start behaving like we really are at war.

Third, the president must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people, all of which, may I say, should have been in the plan and immediately launched with such a ferocity that there was no doubt about America's commitment or capacity in the very first moments afterwards. But they didn't plan.

He ignored his own State Department's plan, he discarded it.

Last week, the administration admitted that its plan was a failure when it asked Congress for permission to radically revise the spending priorities in Iraq. It took them 17 months for them to understand that security is a priority, 17 months to figure out that boosting oil production is critical, 17 months to conclude that an Iraqi with a job is less likely to shoot at our soldiers.

One year ago, this administration asked for and received $18 billion to help the Iraqis and relieve the conditions that contribute to the insurgency. Today, less than $1 billion of those funds have actually been spent. I said at the time that we have to rethink our policies and set standards of accountability, and now we're paying the price for not doing that.

He should use more Iraqi contractors and workers instead of big corporations like Halliburton.

In fact, he should stop paying companies under fraud investigation or corruption investigation. And he should fire the civilians in the Pentagon who are responsible for mismanaging the reconstruction effort.

Fourth, the president must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee that the promised election can be held next year. Credible elections are key to producing an Iraqi government that enjoys the support of the Iraqi people and an assembly that could write a constitution and yields a viable power-sharing agreement.

Because Iraqis have no experience in holding free and fair elections, the president agreed six months ago that the U.N. must play a central role, yet today, just four months before Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls, the U.N. secretary general and administration officials say elections are in grave doubt, because the security situation is so bad, and because not a single country has yet offered troops to protect the U.N. elections mission.

The president needs to tell the truth. The president needs to deal with reality, and he should recruit troops from our friends and allies for a U.N. protection force.

Now, this is not going to be easy. I understand that.

Again, I repeat, every month that's gone by, every offer of help spurned, every alternative not taken for these past months has made this more difficult and those were this president's choices. But even countries that refused to put boots on the ground in Iraq ought to still be prepared to help the United Nations hold an election.

We should also intensify the training of Iraqis to manage and guard the polling places that need to be opened. Otherwise, U.S. forces will end up bearing that burden alone.

If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years.

That can achieved.

This is what has to be done. This is what I would do if I were president today. But we can't afford to wait until January and I can't tell you what I will find in Iraq on January 20th.

President Bush owes it to the American people to tell the truth and put Iraq on the right track. Even more, he owes it to our troops and their families whose sacrifice is a testament to the best of America.

The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear. We must make Iraq the world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should have always been bearing the burden.

That's the right way to get the job done. It always was the right way to get the job done to minimize the risk to American troops and the cost to American taxpayers. And it is the right way to get our troops home.

On May 1st of last year, President Bush stood in front of a now- infamous banner that read Mission accomplished. He declared to the American people that, In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

In fact, the worst part of the war was just beginning, with the greatest number of American casualties still to come.

The president misled, miscalculated and mismanaged every aspect of this undertaking and he has made the achievement of our objective -- a stable Iraq, secure within its borders, with a representative government -- far harder to achieve than it ever should have been.

In Iraq, this administration's record is filled with bad predictions, inaccurate cost estimates, deceptive statements and errors of judgment, presidential judgment, of historic proportions.

At every critical juncture in Iraq and in the war on terrorism, the president has made the wrong choice.

I have a plan to make America stronger.

The president often says that in a post-9/11 world we can't hesitate to act. I agree. But we should not act just for the sake of acting.

George Bush has no strategy for Iraq. I do and I have all along.

George Bush has not told the truth to the American people about why we went to war and how the war is going. I have and I will continue to do so.

I believe the invasion of Iraq has made us less secure and weaker in the war on terrorism. I have a plan to fight a smarter, more effective war on terror that actually makes America safer.

Today, because of George Bush's policy in Iraq, the world is a more dangerous place for America and Americans; just ask anyone who travels.

If you share my conviction that we cannot go on as we are, that we can make America stronger and safer than it is, then November 2nd is your chance to speak and to be heard. It is not a question of staying the course, but of changing the course.

I am convinced that with the right leadership, we can create a fresh start, move more effectively to accomplish our goals.</sup>

^{Our troops have served with extraordinary courage and commitment. For their sake, for America's sake, we have to get this right. We have to do everything in our power to complete the mission and make America stronger at home and respected again in the world.}

^{Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.}

^{(Source: Washington Post and johnkerry.com)}

"You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Watch Kerry's remarks on YouTube.com.