Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry told an audience in Green Bay, Wisc., Tuesday that “the American people deserve a commander in chief who will tell the truth in good times and bad.” Kerry said that President Bush “failed that fundamental test,” and that he would do a better job. Here is a transcript of Kerry’s speech as released by the campaign.
KERRY: Thank you Wisconsin. And thank you UWGB -- it’s great to be here at the home of the Phoenix.
| U.S. President | | Updated 2:09 AM ET | Precincts:0% |
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I want to start by thanking all the mayors who made the trip to be here with me. Every day, America’s mayors find themselves on the front lines of the fight to secure America. They know better than anyone the challenges we face to keep our cities prepared. In the three years since September 11th, you have done a magnificent job. And today, I’d like to talk about how much safer we can be if we have a President who did his job as well as you do yours.
One week from today, America faces a fundamental choice -- the choice of a lifetime -- a choice about the future of our country.
I believe that we need a President who defends America and fights for the middle class.
When I am President, I will fight a tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror. We will hunt down, capture, and kill the terrorists wherever they are.
I will never give any other nation or organization a veto over our national security. But I will never forget what Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan all knew -- that America is stronger, our troops are safer, and success is more certain when we build and lead strong alliances, not when we go it alone.
George Bush has failed to learn this lesson. And over the last four years, he has failed in his fundamental obligation as Commander- in-Chief to make America as safe and secure as we should be.
Yesterday, we learned that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from one of Iraq’s most sensitive military installations, after the invasion.
Just as the Bush Administration’s failure to secure Iraq’s borders has led to thousands of terrorists flooding into the country, their failure to secure those explosives threatens American troops and the American people.
Before the war, the explosives were monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which warned the Bush Administration that they could fall into the wrong hands. And it urged the Bush Administration to secure them.
But we rushed to war in Iraq without a plan to safeguard sensitive sites like this one.
And now, the explosives are missing, unaccounted for, and could be in the hands of terrorists -- used to attack our troops or our people.
As a result of this loss, terrorists could be helping themselves to what has been called “the greatest explosives bonanza in history.”
