After a report appeared that Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry was planning a week of attacks on Vice President Dick Cheney, the Veep made a pre-emptive strike by criticizing Kerry's dismal record on national security in a speech at Westminster College in Missouri.
"Senator Kerry's record raises serious doubts about his understanding of the broader struggle against terror, of which Iraq is only one front," said Cheney. "Less than two weeks ago, within hours of Osama bin Laden issuing a tape promising further attacks on America, Senator Kerry suggested that the President is exaggerating the terrorist threat. . . . Recently he said, 'I don't want to use that terminology.' In his view, the war on terror is, again I quote, 'not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence-gathering, law enforcement, public diplomacy effort.'"
