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New Kerry Ad on Bush Failure to Secure Explosives /Misjudgments that Have Made America Less Secure

For Immediate Release

Watch the Ad: "Obligation"

Kerry Statement on Bush’s Failure to Secure Explosives in Iraq
Lockhart Statement on Reports of Missing Explosives in Iraq
Winning the Peace In Iraq

Washington, DC - The Kerry-Edwards campaign released the new television ad “Obligation” Tuesday. Emphasizing that it is the obligation of a Commander-in-Chief to keep our country safe, the 30-second television spot focuses on George W. Bush’s misjudgments that have put our soldiers at risk and made America less secure, including his failure to secure 380 tons of explosives in Iraq.

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AD SCRIPT
John Kerry: “The obligation of a Commander in Chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq, George Bush has overextended our troops and now failed to secure 380 tons of deadly explosives. The kind used for attacks in Iraq, and for terrorist bombings. His Iraq misjudgments put our soldiers at risk, and make our country less secure. And all he offers is more of the same. As President, I’ll bring a fresh start to protect our troops and our nation. I’m John Kerry and I approved this message.”

JUST THE FACTS
John Kerry: “The obligation of a Commander in Chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq, George Bush has overextended our troops…”

Bush’s Lack of Plan Has Made Soldiers Bear Burden of Overstressed Military. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told senators in early February that the U.S. military is so overstressed that he is using emergency powers to expand it by 33,000 troops and that he will increase it further if required. “There is no question that the Army is stressed,” Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in January 2004. The Pentagon already has instituted “stop-loss” orders to maintain troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan, preventing troops from retiring or leaving the service at the end of their enlistments, while “stop-move” holds them overseas beyond the original end of their tours. About 40,000 servicemen and women have been affected by the “stop-loss” and “stop-move” orders. Of these, about 16,000 are Reservists. [Chicago Tribune, 2/5/04]
Former Bush Administrator in Iraq Said Army Is In Terrible Shape. “There is no question that the Army personnel system is stressed. I think the Army is in terrible shape,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, who served last year as the Bush administrations first administrator in postwar Iraq. “I think people are worn out, equipment is run down and we’ve overstressed the reserves. We’re drastically short [of] infantry and MPs because the Army is too small.” [Washington Post, 7/6/04]
Only 22,700 Iraqi Security Personnel Sufficiently Trained to be Considered “Minimally Effective.” He says he has trained 100,000 Iraqi security forces. Back in February, they told us it was 200,000. Interim Prime Minister Allawi told a joint session of Congress two weeks ago that only 50,000 are ready. And, according to documents provided by the Pentagon to Cong. Obey, only 22,700 security personnel have enough training to be “minimally effective.” [Rumsfeld, Department of Defense Briefing, 9/7/04; Allawi, Address to Joint Session of Congress, 9/23/04; Appropriations Committee, Democratic Staff; Rep. Obey; Fact Sheet, 9/24/04]
John Kerry: “…and now failed to secure 380 tons of deadly explosives.”

380 Tons of Explosives Missing from Sensitive Former Iraqi Military Installation. “The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.” [New York Times, 10/25/04]
Bush Administration Ignored Warnings of Leaving Explosives Unsupervised. “A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the I.A.E.A.'s Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa. But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces ‘went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal.’ It is unclear whether they ever returned.” [New York Times, 10/25/04]
John Kerry: “The kind used for attacks in Iraq, and for terrorist bombings.”

Experts: “Immediate Concern” Is Weapons Could Be Used Against Troops. “American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings.” [New York Times, 10/25/04]
Same Type of Explosives Have Been Used By Terrorists Before. “The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa, and somewhat larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people.” [New York Times, 10/25/04]
Former U.N. Weapons Inspector David Albright: Missing Explosives “May All Be In The Hands Of Insurgents, Which Is Even A Worse Picture Than I Would Have Anticipated.” [CNN Newsnight with Aaron Brown, 10/25/04]
John Kerry: “His Iraq misjudgments put our soldiers at risk, and make our country less secure.

At Least 1,109 U.S. Troops Have Died in Iraq Since the Start of the War. According to CNN, “[t]here have been 1,248 coalition deaths, 1,109 Americans, 68 Britons, seven Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, one Estonian, one Hungarian, 19 Italians, one Latvian, 13 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and nine Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of October 25, 2004.” There are now 161,000 coalition troops in Iraq. 137,000 of those troops are American – nearly 90 percent. [CNN Special Report, 10/25/04; Brookings Institution, “Iraq Index,” Updated 10/25/04]
Coalition Nations Withdrawing Troops from Iraq. Since the beginning of the war, eight countries are planning to or have already withdrawn troops from the coalition in Iraq: Thailand, Norway, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Philippines, Singapore, and Spain. In all, nearly 3,000 troops have pulled out or planning to pull out of Iraq this month. Costa Rica, which never offered any material support or troops for the war in Iraq, asked the United States to remove it from a list of Iraq coalition partners in September after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that inclusion on the list violated the Constitution, which bars support for any military action not authorized by the United Nations. [AP, 8/13/04, 9/10/04; Miami Herald, 9/18/04]
Special Forces, Intelligence Personnel Pulled Out of Afghanistan to Support the Iraq War. In 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. The CIA, meanwhile, was stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan. US Intelligence officials said that as much as half of the intelligence and special forces assets in Afghanistan and Pakistan were diverted to support the war in Iraq. [USA Today, 3/29/04; KnightRidder, 9/5/03]
Covert Team that Led bin Laden Hunt Dropped from 150 Men to 30 While Iraq Counterpart Swelled. “Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than two-thirds of its fighting strength. The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. … At the peak of the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants, in early 2002, about 150 commandos operated along Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan and Iran in a top-secret team known as Task Force 5. … Task Force 5 dropped in strength at times to as few as 30 men. Its counterpart in Iraq, by early 2003, burgeoned to more than 200 as an insurgency grew and Hussein proved difficult to find.” [Washington Post, 10/22/04]
Former White House Counterterror Official: “Iraq Did Take Focus and Energy Away from the Afghanistan Campaign.” “‘I support the decision to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's regime,’ said [Retired Army Gen. Wayne A.] Downing, a former U.S. Special Operations Command chief. ‘But in fact it was a gamble of sorts because Iraq did take focus and energy away from the Afghanistan campaign.’” Downing was recruited to head the White House Office for Combating Terrorism a few weeks after September 11. [Washington Post, 10/22/04]
Overstretching the Military May Hurt Long-Term Global War on Terror. The GAO reported that Bush’s overstretching of the military may hurt the long-term war on terror. “If DOD’s implementation of the partial mobilization authority restricts the cumulative time that reserve component forces can be mobilized, then it is possible that DOD will run out of forces… it is unclear how DOD plans to meet its longer-term requirements for the Global War on Terrorism.” [GAO Report, “Military Personnel,” GAO-04-1031, 9/04]
John Kerry: “And all he offers is more of the same.

Bush: “Knowing What I Know Today, I Would Have Made the Same Decision.” “We didn’t find the stockpiles we thought would be there -- that we all thought would be there. But Saddam Hussein had the capability of making weapons and he could have passed that capability on to the enemy. And that is a risk we could not afford to take after September 11th, 2001. Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. And America and the world are safer with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell. [Bush Remarks, 9/17/04]
Cheney: “What We Did In Iraq Was Exactly The Right Thing To Do. If I Had It To Recommend All Over Again, I Would Recommend Exactly The Right -- Same Course Of Action.” [Vice Presidential Debate (Cleveland, Ohio), 10/6/04]
John Kerry: “As President, I’ll bring a fresh start to protect our troops and our nation.

John Kerry Has a Plan to Win the Peace in Iraq. John Kerry and John Edwards believe the following principles should guide American policy in Iraq right now: internationalize, because others must share the burden; train Iraqis, because they must be responsible for their own security; move forward with reconstruction because that's an important way to stop the spread of terror; and help Iraqis achieve a viable government, because it is up to them to run their own country. [www.johnkerry.com]
John Kerry Is Fighting to Ensure the America’s Military Remains the Best Equipped, And Best Trained in the World. John Kerry and John Edwards will add 40,000 troops to the army, and end the stop-loss policy instituted by the Bush administration, which is effectively a back door draft that runs counter to the traditions of an all-volunteer military. The Kerry-Edwards plan will also double the Army Special Forces capabilities, the troops who land behind enemy lines, conduct counter-terrorism operations, perform reconnaissance missions, and gather intelligence. Kerry will also increase our civil affairs personnel, build new forces specializing in finding, securing, and destroying weapons of mass destruction, and make homeland security one of the primary missions of the National Guard. [www.johnkerry.com]
John Kerry Will Wage a More Effective War on Terror. John Kerry has a seven-point plan to win the war on terror by capturing or killing the terrorists, crushing their movement and freeing the world from fear. John Kerry will transform the world's most powerful military to better address the modern threats of terrorism and proliferation. He will deny terrorists the weapons they seek by securing nuclear materials worldwide and implementing port and bio-terrorism security strategies. Kerry will cut off terrorist finances, and make homeland security a real priority, backed up by real resources. He will launch a strategy to win the war of ideas to prevent terrorists from poisoning more minds, and will promote democracy and freedom throughout the Muslim world. Finally, Kerry will rebuild America’s strong alliances, critical not only to our military operations but in everything we do to track down and capture terrorists. [www.johnkerry.com]
John Kerry: “I’m John Kerry and I approved this message.