KERRY TELLS TIME HE WILL ‘ALMOST CERTAINLY’ SEND HIS OWN TEAM TO IRAQ

drudgereport.com ^ | Sun Mar 07 2004 09:07:19 ET | drudge

[ThreePuttinDude]

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KERRY TELLS TIME HE WILL ‘ALMOST CERTAINLY’ SEND HIS OWN TEAM TO IRAQ TO ASSESS SITUATION ‘WITHIN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS OR MONTHS’

Sun Mar 07 2004 09:07:19 ET

Mentions Sending Senate Colleague Joseph Biden, Chief Campaign Foreign Policy Adviser Rand Beers and Longtime Senate Aide Nancy Stetson

White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett says Kerry’s Mission Reveals His Attacks are ‘Based on Politics, Not Facts’

New York – Senator John Kerry tells TIME that he “almost certainly” will send a team to Iraq “within the next few weeks or months” to help him formulate his Iraq policy positions. “I may ask some Democratic colleagues and experts to go to Iraq and make this assessment so I have a strong basis on which to proceed,” he tells TIME’s Perry Bacon, Lisa Beyer and Karen Tumulty on his campaign plane from Washington, DC to Florida last week. He mentions Senate colleague Joseph Biden, chief campaign foreign policy adviser Rand Beers and longtime Kerry Senate aide Nancy Stetson. But, says White House communications director Dan Bartlett, Kerry’s “mission to finally understand what is happening in Iraq reveals once again that [his] attacks are based on politics, not facts.”

Whatever approach he embraces will have a better chance of success, Kerry argues, because he knows how to play well with others, TIME’s Nancy Gibbs reports. The interview with Kerry is part of TIME’s Special Report on Iraq One Year Later (on newsstands Monday, March 8).

When asked by TIME about President Bush’s hate of the word ‘nuance’ and his opinion of the word, Kerry says, “Some of these issues are very complicated and deserve more than a simplistic this or that,” says Kerry. As he speaks, Kerry heats up, grows loud, almost angry. His message shifts: Don’t for a moment think all that worldliness means he has no convictions. Or that he is weak or a waffler or a political opportunist, TIME reports.

“I don’t think war is nuanced at all. I think how you take a nation to war is the most fundamental decision a President makes,” Kerry says, “and there’s nothing nuanced at all about keeping your promises. There is nothing nuanced about exhausting remedies that give you legitimacy and consent to go to war. And I refuse ever to accept the notion that anything I’ve suggested with respect to Iraq was nuanced. It was clear. It was precise. It was, in fact, prescient. It was ahead of the curve about what the difficulties were. And that is precisely what a President is supposed to be. I think I was right, 100% correct, about how you should have done Iraq.”

Kerry says he learned from Vietnam, where he served as a swift boat commander, that you go to war only if all other options fail and that you had better make certain you are prepared to do what it takes to secure peace afterward. Whatever his criticisms of Bush’s war, Kerry says he is committed to finishing the mission. “My exit strategy is success,” he says, “a viable, stable Iraq that can contribute to the stability and peace in the Middle East.”

Among the first things Kerry would do as President, says Sandy Berger, who was a National Security Adviser under Bill Clinton and has consulted with Kerry on the subject, would be to tell the American people to “put aside your misgivings or whatever you thought about this in the beginning. We cannot fail now.”

Developing...

[Gracey]

ELECTION 2004
Kerry's wife funds critics of Bush ads
Non-profit group behind 9/11 families tied to Heinz charitable contributions

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Posted: March 6, 200411:47 a.m. Eastern

By Joseph Farah © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – The non-profit, tax-exempt organization representing the families of September 11 victims who are critical of campaign ads by President Bush is a project of the Tides Center, which has received millions of dollars in charitable contributions from foundations chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, WorldNetDaily has learned.

Teresa Heinz Kerry

"September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" is a pacifist organization that has opposed not only the war in Iraq but the war in Afghanistan as well. It is a project of the Tides Center, one of the pet causes of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira Heinz Endowment, both directed by Mrs. Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

The group delivered up to the New York Daily News Thursday seasoned spokesmen Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg and others to attack President Bush's re-election campaign ads. None of the critics of the ads in that original story were identified as members of Peaceful Tomorrows.

The Peaceful Tomorrows activists charged the campaign ads exploited the September 11 terrorist attacks for political advantage.

That story in the New York Daily News touched off a national media firestorm. By Thursday night, the Peaceful Tomorrows activists were on every national television news show, often identified simply as relatives of the victims of the September 11 attack rather than members of an activist organization, supported with tax-exempt Heinz funds, with a specifically anti-Bush agenda.

Peaceful Tomorrows is much more than an independent group of grieving survivors. It is a stridently antiwar organization that has ferociously criticized the Bush administration since it was founded about a year after the attacks.

Peaceful Tomorrows claims to represent 120 families of the nearly 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Following the media blitz by the organization's activists, John Kerry himself weighed in on the controversy.

In New Orleans, Kerry said Bush was trying to "scare America" and "change the subject" with the ads.

"You can understand why he's doing that," Kerry said. "He can't come out here and talk to you about jobs. He can't come out here and talk to you about protecting the environment. He can't talk to you about balancing the budget."

The Bush ads contain only fleeting imagery of the Sept. 11 attacks. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos acknowledged that in his own report on "World News Tonight": "You'll have to look very closely to see what all the fuss is about. Blink twice and you'll miss it. But those four seconds set off the first firestorm of this new campaign, when some 9/11 families cried foul."

As WorldNetDaily reported last month, the Tides Foundation, a 28-year-old grant-making institution, is one of Teresa Heinz Kerry's favorite distributors of charitable funds. It sponsors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars radical groups that, among other things, protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, demand open U.S. borders, provide the legal defense of suspected terrorists and promote the spread of Islamist ideology in the U.S.

Heinz Kerry, worth an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars, working through the Howard Heinz Endowment, oversaw the donation of more than $4 million to the Tides Foundation between 1995 and 2001. For a fee, Tides protects the anonymity of donors by directing tax-deductible contributions to specific groups.

Heinz Kerry not only serves as chairman of the Howard Heinz Endowment, she also sits on the board of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment.

---

Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com.

[fuzzthatwuz]

"Kerry says he learned from Vietnam, where he served as a swift boat commander, that you go to war only if all other options fail"

Those other option to include a failed attempt to defer your duty by attending school in France for a year?

[Nathan Zachary]

Yet, this story gets NO press anywhere that I have seen,

It's sad that kerry has to PAY people to make mock demonstrations against Bush.
Isn't there some kind of LAW against kerry's use of charity donations for political purposes?

Also, considering kerry has already interfered with the mid-east war by contacting the enemy, Iran, and now using federal monies to send a "team" of Bush bashers to Iraq, Isn't that stepping into the "treason" zone?
There has to be a law somewhere that prohibits this type of interference for political gain.

[mewzilla]

Rand Beers, huh? Figgers.

[freekitty]

The "Dude, I with ya" guy will most certainly be featured.

[freekitty]

I like your flip flop picture and I think it would be a great logo for JFingK.

[Timeout]

Biden, huh? Very interesting pick.

According to an article in the 10/23/02 Afterposten (Norway) Senators Biden and Clinton met with European Labour Party leaders "to be prepared with common strategies if a majority of them on both sides of the Atlantic come back to power". I've long believed the Euro resistance to Bush policies is coordinated with the donkeys. After 9/11 the donkeys felt precluded from criticizing Bush, so they linked up with their Euro allies to do it for them.

Now, I suppose, Biden will be sent to Iraq to stir up trouble and make sure nothing good happens on the president's watch.

[jackbill]

Why doesn't Kerry go to Iraq? Could it be that he knows that he wouldn't be welcomed, after voting against supporting the troops?

I'd love to see a poll done in Iraq, among the troops.

[Nathan Zachary]

"It sponsors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars radical groups that, among other things, protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, demand open U.S. borders, provide the legal defense of suspected terrorists and promote the spread of Islamist ideology in the U.S." That last part scares me. promote killing Jews and Christians? Is this charity being investigated for funding terrorist groups? Wouldn't that be something if Kerry's wife went down in flames for supporting Hamas, Islamic Jihad which is responsible for killing our troops. And that comment kerry made about his "Vietnam war experience" who is he kidding? driving around in a relatively 'no action' zone is hardly experience, especially when he was supposedly wounded, 3 purple hearts after all, and got out as fast as he could. The only other experience he had in that part of the world was gunning down women and babies, old men in a no-fire zone.

[Dustbunny]

Where does a Senator get the authority and the funding to assemble a forigen policy intelligence team to send to a war zone and develop a policy to fit his reelection aganda at the detriment of our troop safety and national security? ---- Who is going to transport these people around and protect them and the massive CNN,ABC,NPR,CBS,PBS,NBS entourage that will follow them 24/7? -----What will be the cost?

What does he care, what does any deMARXocrat care. Look at what it cost the American taxpayer for the Clinton trips.

[Godfollow]

I was hoping Bush was playing rope-a-dope with the Dems by not setting the agenda, i.e., letting Kerry and the DNC set the agenda. It appears I am wrong. Bush is not out front on anything, he is always playing catch-up, NPI, to Kerry.

It's beginning to make me feel that he is weak and wistful about his reelection... kinda like his dad, woes image in my mind is weak... a wuss. It's beginning to look like the apple is not going to have fallen far from the tree.

The soft, squishy adds he just ran does not make him look strong or resolute, they plead, "...please be nice... I'm a nice guy... oh, and by the way, I'm strong too..." Enough of this nice guy crap already...

[FBD]

bump

[Liz]

BTTT

[Wolfhound777]

Also, considering kerry has already interfered with the mid-east war by contacting the enemy, Iran, and now using federal monies to send a "team" of Bush bashers to Iraq, Isn't that stepping into the "treason" zone? There has to be a law somewhere that prohibits this type of interference for political gain.

I think you could make the argument that most demonRats are treasonous. If the Republican party does not step up it's fight against these people soon, it is going to be too late to get them out of government at all.

[mombonn]

All his preening makes a peacock look humble.

[Wolfhound777]

According to an article in the 10/23/02 Afterposten (Norway) Senators Biden and Clinton met with European Labour Party leaders "to be prepared with common strategies if a majority of them on both sides of the Atlantic come back to power". I've long believed the Euro resistance to Bush policies is coordinated with the donkeys. After 9/11 the donkeys felt precluded from criticizing Bush, so they linked up with their Euro allies to do it for them.

If a Clintonista was involved, you can be sure it was far more sinister than just criticizing Bush. I would bet the DemonRats are conspiring with the Euroweenies on ways to end the soveriegnty of the United States.

[CFC__VRWC]

Senator John Kerry tells TIME that he “almost certainly” will send a team to Iraq “within the next few weeks or months” to help him formulate his Iraq policy positions.

So he's going to get Tah-Ray-Zah to break out the checkbook and pay for a bunch of his Rat cronies to go over to Iraq and interview a handful of disgruntled ex-Baathist apparatchiks, and use this to "formulate Iraq policy."

Why not save the money and just give this task to the media? They're doing this over in Iraq right at this very moment and calling it "journalism."

[VRWC For Truth]

Let me guess ..... Kerry is going to surrender to the Fedayeen.

[Mr. K]

He needs to find out what he thihks about this issue...

If it sounds like a waffle, looks like a waffle, speaks like a waffle...