NEWS ANALYSIS
Flip-flopping charge unsupported by facts; Kerry always pushed global cooperation, war as last resort
By:Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief
Thursday, September 23, 2004 Washington -- No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq. President Bush, seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Tuesday: "My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.'' The allegation is the basis of a new Bush campaign TV ad that shows the Democratic senator from Massachusetts windsurfing to the strains of a Strauss waltz as a narrator intones: "Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it, supported it and now opposes it again.'' Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation. As foreign policy emerged as a dominant issue in the Democratic primaries and later in the general election, Kerry clung to a nuanced, middle-of-the road -- yet largely consistent -- approach to Iraq. Over and over, Kerry enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did so. Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace. There were times when Kerry's emphasis shifted for what appear to be political reasons, such as the fall of 2003 when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean surged to the top of Democratic polls based on an anti-war platform and Kerry's criticism of the president grew stronger. There are many instances in which clumsy phrases and tortuously long explanations make Kerry difficult to follow. And there are periods, such as last week, when the sharpness of Kerry's words restating old positions seem to suggest a change. Yet taken as a whole, Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq became a national conversation more than two years ago. "Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm (Hussein) by force, if we ever exhaust ... other options,'' Kerry said 23 months ago on the Senate floor before voting to authorize the force, imploring Bush to take the matter to the United Nations. "If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community," Kerry said, insisting that Bush work with the United Nations. "If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out,'' Kerry said. Republicans have hit the flip-flop charge hard. The Republican National Committee produced an 11-minute video, widely distributed on the Internet, which features dozens of seemingly inconsistent Kerry statements and the soundtrack to the 1960s television show "Flipper.'' Bush supporters distributed Kerry flip-flop sandals to delegates at the GOP convention last month, the Bush campaign produced a Kerry flip-flop game for its Web site, and the president brings it up almost every day on the campaign trail. The crux of the flip-flopping charge is based on pitting Kerry's pointed criticism of the war against his October 2002 vote to authorize the use of force, a vote the Democratic senator defends to this day. Republicans are not the only ones who characterize the vote as an endorsement of war. Many Democrats, including Dean, warned that a vote in favor of the resolution would be tantamount to giving Bush a blank check to go to war. Even today, many Democrats are aghast at Kerry's insistence that, knowing everything he knows now, he would cast the same vote. Kerry, who was one of 29 Democratic senators to support the resolution, said the vote was appropriate to strengthen the president's hand in negotiations, and he draws a distinction between his vote and an endorsement of the March 2003 attack. "Congressional action on this resolution is not the end of our national debate on how best to disarm Iraq,'' Kerry said on the eve of the vote. "Nor does it mean we have exhausted all of our peaceful options to achieve this goal.'' Republicans ridicule such distinctions and use Kerry's vote as the basis for their assertion that Kerry once favored the war. "He voted for it,'' said Republican national chairman Ed Gillespie when asked Wednesday to back the charge that Kerry supported the war. "Look at the coverage at the time, it was pretty clear what was going on.'' Yet in the fall of 2002, several months before the air strikes on Baghdad began, Bush himself insisted the vote was not the same as a declaration of war but instead gave him the hand he needed to negotiate the peace. "If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force,'' Bush said in September 2002. "It's a chance for Congress to say, 'we support the administration's ability to keep the peace.' That's what this is all about.'' The Bush campaign frequently cites Kerry's seemingly incongruous statement at a West Virginia rally in March as another example of his inconsistency. "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,'' Kerry said regarding the Bush administration's request for more funding for the Iraq operation. The line has been used in Bush campaign commercials, and the campaign distributed a memo Tuesday suggesting the vote raises doubts about Kerry's commitment to U.S. troops. The White House is aware that the statement does not reflect a contradiction but an inelegant way of defending a pair of Senate votes. Kerry voted for a measure that paid for the $87 billion by reducing tax cuts for those who earn more than $300,000. He voted against a measure that paid for the $87 billion by adding to the deficit. The biggest shifts in Kerry's language seem to appear at the high-water marks of the war -- shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 and after the capture of Hussein the following December -- when he seems less critical of the Bush policy. Two days after Bush stood before the "Mission Accomplished'' sign and declared major combat over, Kerry participated in a forum with rival Democratic presidential candidates. ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the candidates if the war was the right decision at the right time. "I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity,'' Kerry said, "but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I support him and I support the fact that we did disarm him.'' By contrast, Dean in response to the same question called it the "wrong war at the wrong time,'' using language very similar to what Kerry has said recently. Perhaps the words that Kerry will have the hardest time explaining today are those he uttered three days after Hussein was captured. Dean, who had emerged as Kerry's strongest challenger for the Democratic nomination, said that while Hussein's capture was good news, it had not "made America any safer.'' Kerry seized on the statement, telling students at Drake University, "Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.'' Kerry's enthusiastic words seem to conflict with his statement Monday at New York University. "Saddam Husein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But ... the satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure,'' Kerry said. For a candidate who has been in elected office nearly a quarter of a century, Kerry has at times shown a remarkable inability to explain the nuances of his position. Asked by radio host Don Imus last week to explain how he could be so critical of the war yet stand by his vote to authorize the use of force, Kerry responded with a 324-word answer, including a discussion of no-fly zones and Iraqi tribal separatism. The response left Imus -- a self-described Kerry supporter -- perplexed. "I was just back in my office banging my head on the jukebox,'' Imus told listeners when the interview was over. "This is my candidate, and ... I don't know what he's talking about.''
Kerry on Iraq Oct. 9, 2002 Senate floor speech on Iraq resolution: "In giving the president this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days -- to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.''

Sept. 9, 2003 Speech announcing presidential campaign, Patriot's Point, S.C.: "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations. I believe that was right -- but it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition -- and with no plan to win the peace.''
March 18, 2003 Statement on the eve of the attack on Baghdad: "Even having botched the diplomacy, it is the duty of any president, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threat. ... Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for 12 years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations. ... My strong personal preference would have been for the administration ... to have given diplomacy more time.''
Dec. 3, 2003 Speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City: "Simply put, the Bush administration has pursued the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history.''
Sept. 20, 2004 New York University: "President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq?''

posted by Joshua P. Angell  @ 28.9.04

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