New Clash on Military Service

"His problem is not what he did or didn't do with his medals or his ribbons," said Nicolle Devenish, communications director for the Bush-Cheney campaign. "It's that he's not consistent with himself. He is debating himself."

Kerry raised questions about Bush's service three times during his morning interview. Aides raised the issue multiple times afterward, and a liberal activist group called MoveOn.Org unleashed a similar attack in a new television ad. The ad, which will run in only a few markets, portrays Kerry as a war hero and Bush as, essentially, a slacker who shirked duty. Bush, the ad says, "failed to show up for a required physical -- was grounded, wasn't seen for months and then was released eight months early to go to Harvard Business School."

Another group, run by former Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan, fired off a statement titled "Who the Hell Is Dick Cheney?" It criticized the vice president for seeking deferments to "avoid service in Vietnam."

Neither Bush nor Cheney served on active duty during the Vietnam War. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, trained as an F-102 fighter pilot and was honorably discharged in 1973. Democrats have pointed to gaps in available records of his service in 1972 and 1973, and although the White House has said he fulfilled his obligation, exactly what he did during that period remains unclear.

Cheney was never in the military. He received student draft deferments from 1963 to 1965 and a final deferment after his first daughter was conceived in 1966.

The vice president sought to raise the stakes in the race by comparing the decisions the White House has had to make in the war on terrorism to the choices faced by President Harry S. Truman after World War II.

Cheney portrayed Kerry as a wobbly politician who could not be counted on to tackle such huge issues.

"Senator Kerry has yet to outline any serious plan for winning the war on terror," he said.

Cheney spoke at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., site of the 1946 address in which Sir Winston Churchill, between stints as Britain's prime minister, used the phrase "iron curtain" to denote the separation of the Soviet-dominated East from the freedom of the West.

"To look back on the pivotal decisions of the 1940s and '50s is to be reminded that certain moments come along in history when the gravest threats reveal themselves," Cheney said. "And in those moments, our response must be swift, it must be confident, and it must be right. Ladies and gentlemen, you and I are living in such a time."

Cheney departed from his usual stolid delivery and had a droll smile as he read a list, indictment-style, of the weapons cuts Kerry proposed in a 1984 campaign position paper. "From the beginning of his career in the U.S. Senate 20 years ago, Senator Kerry has repeatedly called for major reductions, or outright cancellations, of many of our most important weapons systems," he said.

A new Bush ad airing in 18 battleground states echoed the criticism. The Kerry campaign responded by releasing a document called "Cheney's Chopping Block," charging that the vice president proposed "killing over 81 weapons" when he was defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush from March 1989 to January 1993.

Allen reported from Fulton, Mo.