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Cheney Questions Kerry’s Resolve in Face of Nuclear Threat; Edwards Accuses Bush of Incompetence
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney questioned Tuesday whether Democratic presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry (Mass.) had the resolve to fight terrorism, saying the danger faced by the United States includes having a nuclear weapon detonated in a city, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 6). “The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind — to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Cheney said at a campaign stop in Ohio. “John Kerry would lead you to believe he has the same kind of view that [President] George [W.] Bush has, that he would be tough and aggressive,” he added. “I don’t believe it. I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the proposition that he would, in fact, do it.” The Kerry campaign countered by saying Cheney was engaging in scare tactics and that a potential Kerry administration would take seriously the nuclear threats posed by Iran and North Korea. “He wants to scare Americans about a possible nuclear 9/11 while the Bush administration has been on the sidelines while the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, have increased,” Mark Kitchens, a policy adviser to Kerry, said in a statement (Randal Archibold, New York Times, Oct. 20). Meanwhile, Kerry’s running mate, Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), accused the Bush administration of failing to require increased security against terrorist attacks at chemical plants as a result of lobbying by the chemical industry. He said the administration had failed to secure “loose” nuclear weapons overseas or adequately protect U.S. airports and ports. “This is not leadership — this is incompetence,” Edwards said (Katharine Webster, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Oct. 19).
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