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Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic
Associated Press Writer

Posted on 09/23/2004 12:06:03 PM PDT by antifem

Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic

Thursday September 23, 2004 4:46 PM

AP Photo FLJC106

By NEDRA PICKLER

Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq's Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the ``best face'' on Bush administration policy.

Shortly after Allawi, the interim government's prime minister, gave a rosy portrayal of progress toward peace in Iraq, Kerry said the assessment contradicted reality on the ground.

``The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story,'' Kerry said.

Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress that democratic elections will take place in Iraq in January as scheduled, but Kerry said that was unrealistic.

``The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq,'' Kerry told reporters outside a Columbus firehouse. ``There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone.''

Kerry's remarks come one day after he told The Associated Press that President Bush's statement that a ``handful'' of people are willing to kill to stop progress in Iraq was a blunder that showed he was avoiding reality.

``George Bush let Osama bin Laden escape at Tora Bora,'' Kerry said in a brief interview Wednesday. ``George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops. And George Bush said on the record we can't win the war on terror.

``And even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq,'' Kerry said. ``I think he's living in a make believe world.''

Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, said: ``It's hard to help a country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process. And that's what you're seeing on the TV screens. You know, these people cannot beat us militarily.''

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday, ``It only took 19 people to take down the World Trade Center towers and kill 3,000 people.'' He said that in Iraq, ``you've seen how a small number of suicide bombers can have a dramatic effect.''

Bush said Wednesday the insurgents ``use the only tool at their disposal, which is beheadings and death, to try to shake our will. They understand the nature of America. ... We weep when we think about the families affected by those who have been brutalized by these terrorists.''

Kerry's voice was scratchy and breaking from a cold on Wednesday. He canceled most public events for Thursday in Columbus and in Iowa to rest his voice, though his words were clear at the firehouse. The campaign said running mate John Edwards would take Kerry's place in Iowa.

Kerry spoke to the AP in West Palm Beach, Fla., shortly before boarding a flight to Columbus and after Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a scathing attack on the Democrat. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, Cheney argued that Kerry has a penchant for wavering that makes him a weak alternative to a ``steadfast leader, which is exactly what we have in President George W. Bush.''

``John Kerry gives every indication that his repeated efforts to cast and recast and redefine the war on terror and our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, of someone who lacks the resolve, the determination and the conviction to prevail in this conflict,'' Cheney said. ``He has demonstrated throughout the course of this campaign that he lacks the clarity of vision and purpose necessary to lead our country during extraordinary times.''

Kerry said he has laid out ``steps to win the war, not to change, not to retreat, steps to win. George Bush is trying to fight a phantom here because he won't tell the American people the truth, so he sets up something that's not a real issue and attacks it.''

Bush ``missed a huge opportunity'' at the United Nations this week to try to persuade leaders of other nations to join the United States in Iraq and the broader anti-terror war, Kerry said.

``I don't think he's providing the leadership we need,'' Kerry said. ``I will do a better job of dealing with Iraq and winning the war and fighting the war on terror, period.''

In a day filled with rhetorical charges and countercharges - at campaign stops and in advertising - all four candidates found fault. Responding to Cheney, Edwards said in a statement that Bush and Cheney ``are the last two people we need a lecture from about how to keep the American people safe.''

``It is the height of absurdity for Dick Cheney, a chief architect of the Iraq quagmire, to talk about the leadership needed to fix the mess in Iraq that he created,'' said Edwards, reviving a word - quagmire - often used to describe the Vietnam War.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: allawi; kerry; kerryiraq; pissant
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To: Carry_Okie

Yeah, Kerry knows a lot about Tora Bora. I think he spent Christmas of '84 there in a Swift Boat under secret orders from Reagan. I can't prove that... so, I guess I'm qualified to anchor a network broadcast.


41 posted on 09/23/2004 12:25:38 PM PDT by SugarLandTexas
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To: pabianice
"Allawi lied!"

And Kerry's campaign died.

42 posted on 09/23/2004 12:25:40 PM PDT by Maceman (Too nuanced for a bumper sticker)
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To: antifem

Vietnam the model, sKerry's 1971 senate speech redux.


43 posted on 09/23/2004 12:26:45 PM PDT by Ursus arctos horribilis ("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)
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To: MPJackal
Give Kerry a break. He my never have been to Iraq, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

ROFL ;^D

44 posted on 09/23/2004 12:28:02 PM PDT by Right_in_Virginia
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To: Species8472; Carry_Okie; Ragtime Cowgirl; Grampa Dave
Kerry is so 9/10!

Front Lines: Afghan Perspective On American Election

45 posted on 09/23/2004 12:29:23 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: antifem

I also got a big giggle from Camp Kerry's insistence that using the Iraqi officers from Saddam's reign was a hideous example of Bush's policy failure.

I suppose re-hiring the Luftwaffe officers and ex-Nazi regime military in Germany after WWII made Truman look like an failure too?


46 posted on 09/23/2004 12:30:08 PM PDT by OpusatFR (Let me repeat this: the web means never having to swallow leftist garbage again. Got it?)
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To: Bikers4Bush

quagmire - n., what the United States will become if John-John is elected in November, 2004


47 posted on 09/23/2004 12:30:31 PM PDT by DennisR (Anyone who believes we evolved from ooze is either very stubborn, very blind, or both.)
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To: antifem
Who was the presstitute who asked Kerry the fantasyland question during the Q& A after Kerry's statement, anyone know?
48 posted on 09/23/2004 12:30:48 PM PDT by mewzilla
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To: MPJackal

Next thing we know you will be telling us that he just switched to Geico.


49 posted on 09/23/2004 12:32:04 PM PDT by DennisR (Anyone who believes we evolved from ooze is either very stubborn, very blind, or both.)
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To: SugarLandTexas

Need some faked documents?


50 posted on 09/23/2004 12:33:15 PM PDT by DennisR (Anyone who believes we evolved from ooze is either very stubborn, very blind, or both.)
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To: Right_in_Virginia; antifem; Bikers4Bush; West Coast Conservative; LibFreeUSA; Peach; Howlin
This just in:

Massachusetts Democrat Brian Golden Endorses President Bush

Even his homestate DemonicRats are jumping ship!

51 posted on 09/23/2004 12:35:07 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: Bikers4Bush

"I'd love to know what idiot advised him to speak out on this topic. What a fool."

Jimmy Carter


52 posted on 09/23/2004 12:36:27 PM PDT by bigdog (It's going to get hot around here)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Isn't that terrific news? We should have kept track of the Democrats who will be voting for Bush. And although Lieberman won't admit it publicly, I'll bet he'll be voting for the president this year.

Coming from a Massachusetts Democrat, who knows Kerry, speaks volumes.


53 posted on 09/23/2004 12:36:39 PM PDT by Peach (The Clinton's pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: antifem
And Kerry is on record saying two (well, ok, more than two, but two CLEAR) things about Iraq:

"Yes, I would have voted for that authority, but I would have used that authority to do things very differently,"
http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/president/articles/0810kerry10.html

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," he added. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war.
---
"President Bush tells us he would do it everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?"

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/040921/ap/d857mv301.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3673952.stm
54 posted on 09/23/2004 12:37:23 PM PDT by jcb8199
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To: DennisR
I can see a chain reaction that is likely to happen in Kerry gets into office. I hope everybody has their survival gear in place. The price of horses and bicycles is going to go up.

The Carter years are going to look like a spring vacation compared to what Komrade Kerry has to offer.

55 posted on 09/23/2004 12:41:09 PM PDT by oyez (¡Qué viva la revolución de Reagan!)
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To: Peach; Kaslin; Grampa Dave; finnman69
Here is some more news:

Futures Traders Betting on Bush


56 posted on 09/23/2004 12:41:21 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: DennisR

Sure, if you have a minute. Heck, they don't need to be very good ones anyway. How about something in IMPACT font, maybe italicized... and on Shrek stationary. Not like anyone would notice.


57 posted on 09/23/2004 12:41:26 PM PDT by SugarLandTexas
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To: antifem
This is possibly Kerry's worst moment, and that's saying a lot.

Advisors or not, the fact that Kerry does things which are at best on the fringes of good and balanced human judgement reveals much about the man.

John Kerry can't even begin to hide his worst and most damaging imperfection: he is completely devoid of a balanced sense of being human.

Kerry is a true egoist/narcissist. He isn't capable of admitting wrong or even admitting imperfection. This is why he keeps bringing up Vietnam, even though the truth of his service brings up many more negative questions than positive answers. Just like a child whose ego is threatened, he just has to respond.

I don't hate him. I think that at times he's silly, but mostly I think that a person like John Kerry in a position of power is dangerous.

I watched the beginning of his press conference and then I simply couldn't take him anymore so I turned off the television.

As I removed Mr. Kerry from my living room I was reminded of the hundreds of times I had turned President Clinton off the tv, too.

58 posted on 09/23/2004 12:42:20 PM PDT by pax_et_bonum (Sometimes these brain cells have a mind of their own.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Kerry is so 9/10!

Actually, I think he's 11/68.

59 posted on 09/23/2004 12:42:25 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly stupid.)
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To: Carry_Okie

"Kerry is so 9/10!
Actually, I think he's 11/68."


LOL Kerry is soooo 1971 too.


60 posted on 09/23/2004 12:43:45 PM PDT by GottaLuvAkitas1 (Ronald Reagan is the TRUE "Father Of Our Country".)
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