Kerry: Dizzy on National Defense and Intelligence

George C. Landrith

John Kerry has spent the last year criticizing George W. Bush for misleading America about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Kerry began this tact once he saw Howard Dean pulling away in the early nomination phase. Oddly enough, before Dean’s fiery antiwar rhetoric, Kerry could have been President Bush’s spokesman on Iraq. During the late 1990s, Kerry called for ground troops to invade Iraq and criticized then President Clinton for not doing enough to force Saddam to disarm. But the prospect of losing the nomination to Howard Dean made a convert of Kerry.

Before Kerry was converted by Dean’s success, Kerry said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that regime change was a noble goal. On September 23, 2001 on CBS’ Face the Nation, Senator John Kerry said, “[I]t is something that we know-for instance, Saddam Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and there is some evidence of their efforts to try to secure these kinds of weapons and even test them."

On July 29, 2002, in New York City, Senator Kerry said, “I agree completely with [President Bush’s] goal of a regime change in Iraq .… Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991."

If George Bush misrepresented the WMD risk or as some have accused him, if he lied about it, then John Kerry is the original WMD liar. John Kerry was “lying” about WMD’s in Iraq long before George Bush was even President.

Kerry’s defenders say he was just relying on mistaken intelligence. But that is also true of George Bush, Britain’s Tony Blair, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to name only a few. Yet, somehow partisans claim Bush misled America while Kerry and everyone else justifiably relied on mistaken intelligence. That logic just doesn’t work.

But maybe we can’t blame Senator Kerry for relying on bad intelligence – for the eight years he was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kerry missed 76 percent of the public hearings. The year after the 9/11 attacks, Kerry did not attend even one public hearing. For the record, President Bush attended 100% of his national security briefings.

But this goes deeper than skipping Intelligence hearings. Kerry also consistently voted to slash intelligence resources. In 1993, shortly after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, Senator Kerry proposed $7.5 billion in intelligence cuts. In 1994, he proposed another $6 billion in cuts to intelligence. Even fellow Democrats criticized the cuts as irresponsible and likely to hamstring future intelligence efforts. In 1995, Kerry again proposed intelligence cuts of $1.5 billion. Fortunately, not a single Senator would cosponsor his bill.

Since his Dean conversion, Kerry began arguing Bush should never have gone to war against Iraq. Then true to form, Kerry recently flip-flopped and says that he would have voted to authorize the war with Iraq even if he had known that there were no WMDs.

Kerry’s positions on Iraq and intelligence are terribly confusing. First, Kerry supports the war and calls for regime change in Iraq. Then, Kerry opposes the war, even telling MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that he is the “antiwar candidate.” Now, Kerry says he would have supported the war even if he had known there were no WMD. It is dizzying!

Throughout the1990s Kerry tried to cut intelligence even when his fellow Democrats said no. Additionally, Kerry didn’t attend Intelligence hearings. Now Kerry says our intelligence apparatus needs an overhaul and he has the experience to do it. Yet, Kerry’s experience is mostly skipping intelligence meetings for eight years and trying to slash intelligence resources. This is not the sort of “reform” most Americans are looking for.

Perhaps his dizzying record on the national defense and intelligence is why Kerry only wants to talk about his four months in Vietnam and ignore the specifics of his 20-year Senate career.

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Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.

george@ff.org