You can't keep America safe, Bush tells Kerry

US president George Bush said the choice facing voters amounted to who could keep Americans safer from terrorists and accused his Democratic rival, John Kerry, of not measuring up.

Kerry’s campaign, in turn, accused the president of resorting to scaremongering out of desperation as the rivals exchanged accusations across battleground states yesterday.

“All progress on every other issue depends on the safety of our citizens,” Bush told supporters in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, delivering a retooled stump speech that portrayed Kerry as naïve on terror and eager to raise taxes.

Kerry, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, retorted: ”We need a president who defends America and who fights for the middle class at the same time. I guarantee you, I will leave no stone unturned to protect this country I love.”

Later, in Nevada, Kerry accused Bush of allowing Osama bin Laden to escape by relying on Afghan warlords to try to hunt down the al-Qaida chief in the caves of Tora Bora in December 2001.

“Can you imagine trusting them when you have your 10th Mountain Division, the United States Marine Corps, when you had all the power and ability of the best-trained military in the world?” Kerry told a rally at the University of Nevada-Reno.

“I would have used our military and we would have gone after and captured or killed Osama bin Laden. That’s tough.”

There has been no definitive conclusion bin Laden was in the caves of Tora Bora in December 2001 when US and Afghan troops surrounded the complex and US warplanes blanketed the area with bombs. But US military and intelligence officials believe he probably was, and US forces largely relied on Afghan forces on the ground to go after him.

Bush suggested his Democratic rival “does not understand the enemy we face and has no idea how to keep America secure”.

His campaign reinforced that theme with a new television ad with chilling imagery of prowling wolves in a dense forest. “Weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm,” an announcer says.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign was quick to fire back.

“They have stooped so low now that they are using a pack of wolves running around a forest trying to scare you. This president is trying to scare America … in a despicable and contemptible way,” Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said in Boynton Beach, Florida.

The Democrats had their own new animal ad, portraying the Republican side as an ostrich with its head in the sand, the Democratic side as an eagle.

With just 11 days to the election, Bush campaigned in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, which account for one-fourth of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Bush won Florida and Ohio in 2000. Pennsylvania is his top goal among Democratic-leaning states.

Kerry was in Wisconsin and Nevada, the first won by Democrat Al Gore in 2000 and the second by Bush.

Polls show the race is close in all of the states Bush and Kerry campaigned in yesterday.