The following are excerpts from the first presidential debate between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry:
Waging the War on Terrorism
KERRY:I believe in being strong and resolute and determined. And I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are.
But we also have to be smart . . . And smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and taking if off to Iraq where the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.
This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. And judgment is what we look for in the president of the United States of America. . . . First of all, he made the misjudgment of saying to America that he was going to build a true alliance, that he would exhaust the remedies of the United Nations and go through the inspections.
In fact, he first didn't even want to do that. And it wasn't until former secretary of state Jim Baker and General Scowcroft and others pushed publicly and said you've got to go to the U.N., that the president finally changed his mind -- his campaign has a word for that -- and went to the United Nations. . . .
He also promised America that he would go to war as a last resort.
Those words mean something to me, as somebody who has been in combat. Last resort. You've got to be able to look in the eyes of families and say to those parents, I tried to do everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter.
BUSH: My opponent looked at the same intelligence I looked at and declared in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.
He also said in December of 2003 that anyone who doubts that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein does not have the judgment to be president.
I agree with him. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein.
I was hoping diplomacy would work. I understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into harm's way.
It's the hardest decision a president makes. So I went to the United Nations. I didn't need anybody to tell me to go to the United Nations. I decided to go there myself.
And I went there hoping that, once and for all, the free world would act in concert to get Saddam Hussein to listen to our demands. They passed the resolution that said, Disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. I believe, when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says.
Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming. Why should he? He had 16 other resolutions and nothing took place. As a matter of fact, my opponent talks about inspectors. The facts are that he was systematically deceiving the inspectors.
