http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/...0922_1695.html
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Sept. 22, 2004 ? President Bush is living in a make-believe world in his understanding of Iraq, misleading the American people and attacking Democrats on phony issues, presidential rival John Kerry said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.
"Even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq," Kerry said. "George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops."
Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, said, "It's hard to help a country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process. And that's what you're seeing on the TV screens. You know, these people cannot beat us militarily."
Bush said the insurgents "use the only tool at their disposal, which is beheadings and death, to try to shake our will. They understand the nature of America. ... We weep when we think about the families affected by those who have been brutalized by these terrorists."
Kerry said that in criticizing his statements on Iraq, Bush was "living in a make-believe world," unwilling to tell the truth or to understand the situation in Iraq.
The Democrat said he had laid out "steps to win the war, not to change, not to retreat, steps to win. George Bush is trying to fight a phantom here because he won't tell the American people the truth, so he sets up something that's not a real issue and attacks it."
Bush "missed a huge opportunity" at the United Nations this week to try to persuade other nations' leaders to join the United States in Iraq and the broader anti-terror war, Kerry said.
"I don't think he's providing the leadership we need," Kerry said. "I will do a better job of dealing with Iraq and winning the war and fighting the war on terror, period."
