The Presidential Campaign

Kerry links Iraq war to economic problems

CINCINNATI - John Kerry journeyed Wednesday to the spot where President Bush made his case for the Iraq war two years ago to accuse Bush of making "catastrophic choices" that have cost the nation $200-billion and short-changed education, health care and job creation.

As part of a new, two-front strategy to refocus the debate over Iraq, Kerry offered his sharpest criticism yet of the mounting economic costs of invading, occupying and stabilizing the country. "George W. Bush's wrong choices have led America in the wrong direction in Iraq and left America without the resources we need here at home," Kerry said.

The Democratic nominee blamed Bush's "miscalculations" before and after the war for leaving children with fewer after-school programs, veterans with inadequate health care, neighborhoods with fewer police officers and workers with fewer jobs. "When I'm president, America will once again stand up to our enemies without destroying or denying our best hopes here at home," Kerry said.

Aides said Kerry is planning a speech soon in which he will offer a detailed plan to end, or greatly curtail, the U.S. military operation in Iraq by January of 2009 and reduce the cost to U.S. taxpayers in the interim.

Bush said the troops would remain in Iraq until the mission is finished. "I don't like to put artificial timetables out there because of politics."

WASHINGTON - With the number of American military deaths in Iraq surpassing 1,000, President Bush said Wednesday "we mourn every loss of life" and declared that the United States was making good progress in the war against terrorism.

"We're still at war," Bush said. "We've got to do everything we can to protect the homeland."

Bush's comments came on the same day that Secretary of State Colin Powell defended the U.S.-led war to topple Iraq's Saddam Hussein and urged patience as the wartorn nation struggles with a transition to democracy.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - If President Bush wins West Virginia, one of the state's five Republican electors says he might not cast his Electoral College vote for Bush to protest the president's economic and foreign policies.

"I think President Bush needs to get the message from people across the this country, including Republicans, that his strategy in national security and his economic policies need (to be) revisited," South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb said Wednesday.

Robb said it is unlikely he would cast his electoral vote for Democrat John Kerry or anyone else but he is considering withholding it.