Kerry urges Bush to end attacks on combat record

DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate John Kerry has urged President Bush to “stand up and stop” what he called personal attacks on him over his combat record in Vietnam.

Mr Kerry said the attacks by a group of Vietnam veterans and former Swift Boat commanders have intensified “because in the last months they have seen me climbing in America’s understanding that I know how to fight a smarter and more effective war” against terrorists.

“That’s why they’re attacking my credibility. That’s why they’ve personally gone after me. The president needs to stand up and stop that. The president needs to have the courage to talk about it.”

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group funded in part by a top GOP donor in Texas, is running ads featuring veterans who served in Vietnam at the same time as Mr Kerry and question his wartime record.

The White House and the Bush campaign have denied any direct connection with the Swift Boat group. “The president has made it repeatedly clear that he wants to see an end to all” advertising from outside groups, said Brian Jones, a Bush campaign spokesman.

But a former POW, retired Col Ken Cordier, resigned as a volunteer from the Bush campaign’s veterans’ steering committee after he participated in an anti-Kerry ad sponsored by the Swift Boat group. The ad criticises Mr Kerry’s congressional anti-war testimony in the 1970s alleging US troops engaged in atrocities in Vietnam.

“Col Cordier did not inform the campaign of his involvement in the advertisement,” the Bush campaign said in a statement. “Because of his involvement (with the group) Col Cordier will no longer participate as a volunteer for Bush-Cheney 04.”

Earlier, Mr Kerry’s campaign released a video comparing the controversy over Mr Kerry’s Vietnam service to attacks on John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries.

The video says, “George Bush is up to his old tricks” and shows then-Texas Governor Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain at a debate in February 2000.

McCain, says that when “fringe veterans groups” attacked him at a Bush campaign function, Bush didn’t say a word. McCain says a group of senators wrote to Bush saying: “Apologise. You should be ashamed.”