By MARTHA RAFFAELE
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 26, 2006; 7:49 PM

CORNWALL, Pa. -- Sen. Rick Santorum, who has been trailing his campaign opponent for months, accused Democrat Bob Casey on Thursday of being unqualified for the Senate "at a very critical time in our nation's future."

In the first of a two-day series of speeches on national security, Santorum said Casey fails to recognize the growing number of worldwide threats.

"From everything I see, my opponent, Mr. Casey, is unready, unqualified for the office that he seeks at a very critical time in our nation's future," Santorum said in a speech at PRL Industries, a metal-castings supplier that counts the military among its customers.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Casey called Santorum's charge a "ridiculous assertion," citing his current job as state treasurer and eight years as auditor general.

"I've been a statewide public official in Pennsylvania for a decade," Casey said.

Santorum's criticism comes after the campaign released a hard-hitting TV ad earlier this week showing Casey's face next to a mushroom cloud and accusing him of supporting policies that hurt national security.

Santorum said the U.S. must pay attention to escalating security threats from countries such as Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.

"We will have to face this threat because our enemies are fully committed to our destruction," Santorum said. "They will not stop until they destroy us or we destroy them."

Casey agreed that the U.S. must fight its enemies aggressively.

"We can't have a defensive war," he told the AP. "We've got to hunt terrorists down."

Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, argued Thursday for the United States to maintain its commitment to fighting terrorism overseas and at home, and to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil.

He referred to what he said were multiple forces trying to undermine the U.S. as "the gathering storm," the title of Winston Churchill's memoir about the causes of World War II.

Santorum quoted the opening passage, in which Churchill said English-speaking peoples "allowed the wicked to rearm."

The senator gave his 40-minute speech in the heart of Pennsylvania's conservative center.

"I believe people in this community, as well as people throughout the central part of the state, understand this threat and are willing to listen to people who tell them the truth, as opposed to folks who want to just sleepwalk through this problem," he said.

Casey was interviewed by the AP on a broad range of subjects. Casey, who like Santorum opposes abortion rights, said that the issue would not be his top priority if he's elected to the U.S. Senate, but that he might support bills that further restrict a woman's access to an abortion.

Casey said he would instead would focus on health care and job creation.

On the Iraq war, Casey said many people would have "doubts about the veracity" of President Bush's statement Tuesday that "absolutely, we're winning" the Iraq war.

He said he favors setting benchmarks to determine when U.S. troops should be brought home. He also repeated his contention that the number of special forces should be doubled and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be fired.

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Associated Press writer Kimberly Hefling in Philadelphia contributed to this report.