Kerry Accuses Bush of Incompetence (on loosing explosives)

Yahoo! News - Kerry Accuses Bush of Incompetence

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. - President Bush (news - web sites), presenting himself as the best candidate to keep America safe, was accused by John Kerry (news - web sites) on Monday of "unbelievable incompetence" in the disappearance of hundreds of tons of powerful explosives in Iraq (news - web sites).

"Every step of the way, this administration has miscalculated," Kerry said in Dover, N.H. He spoke shortly before traveling to Philadelphia for a rally with former President Clinton (news - web sites), who was making his first political appearance since heart surgery nearly seven weeks ago.

Kerry said the Bush administration had "miscalculated about how to go to war, miscalculated about the numbers of troops that we would need, miscalculated about sending young Americans to war without the armor they needed, without the Humvees they needed that were armored."

"And the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk and put this country at greater risk than we ought to be," Kerry said.

Running mate John Edwards (news - web sites), campaigning in Ohio, added, "After today, it's hard to imagine that even they'll continue believing things are going well."

The International Atomic Energy Agency said about 350 tons of highly explosive material had disappeared in Iraq, apparently stolen because of a lack of security at governmental installations.

The central argument of Bush's re-election campaign is that he can do a better job protecting America than Kerry, and polls show that voters trust Bush more on this issue. The Bush campaign dismissed Kerry's criticism of the missing explosives without responding to the allegations.