Kerry Attacks 'Torn From the Headlines,' Bush Campaign Says

(CNSNews.com) - The way the Bush-Cheney campaign sees it, the Kerry-Edwards campaign is "becoming desperate."

In an email message to supporters on Monday, Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman wrote, "Every day brings a new charge against the President and every charge is pulled right from the headlines of the New York Times. If you want to know how John Kerry will attack the President in the afternoon, just read the Times in the morning."

Mehlman was referring to a front-page article in Monday's New York Times, which said nearly 380 tons of "powerful conventional explosives" have vanished in Iraq - perhaps falling into the hands of terrorists. The Kerry campaign called the failure to secure the explosives another example of the "stunning incompetence of the Bush administration."

The Bush-Cheney campaign said Sen. John Kerry will say anything he believes will help him politically - "the tactics of a candidate who has no message for the future and no positive record to run on."

According to the Bush-Cheney campaign, the entire country of Iraq was a weapons stockpile - and so far, 243,000 tons of weapons and explosives have been "secured and destroyed." The campaign said another 163,000 tons of weapons have been secured and are awaiting destruction.

It also notes that Saddam Hussein's government stored weapons in mosques, schools, hospitals and "countless other locations" throughout Iraq. The campaign accuses Kerry of "Monday-morning quarterbacking," and it says he "still cannot decide whether Saddam Hussein was a threat or not."

Kerry, the Bush-Cheney campaign said, "claims the weapons our troops have secured and destroyed were not a threat, but any other weapons were."

Prepare for more "baseless attacks torn from the headlines" in the final week of campaigning, the message warns.

See related articles:
Kerry Blasts Bush's 'Great Blunder' in Iraq (25 Oct. 2004)
Kerry Campaign Seizes on Report About Missing Explosives in Iraq (25 Oct. 2004)