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Skriven 2004-10-01 15:10:18 av Alan Hess
Ärende: debate - both shaded truth
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/printedition/bal-te.truth01oct01,0,632650.sto
ry?coll=bal-pe-asection
Both shaded the truth, fudged details
Iraq, law enforcement, North Korea among issues on which facts were twisted


By Mark Matthews and Laura Sullivan
Sun National Staff

October 1, 2004

WASHINGTON - In the heat of last night's debate, President Bush and Sen. John
Kerry both stretched the truth and glossed over important details in discussing
their own and their opponent's positions.

Here are the candidates' statements that drifted furthest from the facts.

# Bush said, "Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming. As a matter of
fact, my opponent talks about inspectors. The facts are that he was
systematically deceiving the inspectors."

By the time United Nations inspectors returned to Iraq in late fall 2002, Iraq
had been substantially disarmed. The 1991 Persian Gulf war, subsequent
inspections and airstrikes had largely rid Iraq of its weapons stockpiles.

The new inspections uncovered and destroyed missiles that exceeded United
Nations range requirements.

Since U.S. and allied troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, no stockpiles of
chemical or biological weapons have been found, and U.S. investigators say
Hussein's nuclear program was in a rudimentary research phase.

Although Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented evidence in February 2003
that he said revealed Iraq's deception of inspectors, some of that evidence has
been called into question.

In one well-publicized example, many U.S. intelligence officials think the vans
described by Powell as mobile biological weapons laboratories were intended for
other purposes.

# Kerry said, "There are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North
Korea."

The United States doesn't know how many nuclear weapons North Korea has, if
any. By the mid-1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies believed Pyongyang had enough
plutonium for one or more nuclear weapons.

Since then, North Korea acknowledged that it had a program to enrich uranium,
another nuclear-weapons fuel. And recently, it declared that it had reprocessed
the nuclear fuel rods that previously had been under the watch of international
inspectors.

South Korean officials have said that if Pyongyang did that, it could have
eight new nuclear bombs. But U.S. officials note that North Korea has made
conflicting statements about its weapons program.

The two candidates also made statements that were confusing and possibly
misleading.

# Bush said, "Osama bin Laden is isolated; 75 percent of his people have been
brought to justice."

He apparently was referring to deaths or arrests of key al-Qaida operatives
involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The CIA estimated this year that
two-thirds of that group had been removed.

Al-Qaida is a loose network of Islamist terror groups spread among 60 countries
that some analysts think is continuing to grow and replenish its ranks.

# Kerry said, "In Iraq, we've got weapons of mass destruction crossing the
border every single day, and they're blowing people up." He apparently meant
suicide bombers or weapons being smuggled.

# Kerry said of Bush, "This is the president who said, "There were weapons of
mass destruction," said "Mission accomplished," said we could fight the war on
the cheap, none of which were true."

"Mission Accomplished" was on a banner behind Bush when he spoke to returning
U.S. service members aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003. Bush never used
the words.

# Kerry said at various points that the United States went into Iraq alone or
with a few allies, specifying Britain and Australia.

Bush added Poland, which sent troops to Iraq later, but he did not mention
Spain, an early member of the coalition that later pulled its troops out.

# Bush said his administration "worked with the Congress to create the
Department of Homeland Security so we could better coordinate our borders and
ports." Bush resisted the creation of the department for several months. He
argued that it would become a lumbering bureaucracy and that he did not think
the department needed to be a cabinet-level agency.

# Bush also said, "We spent $3.1 billion for fire and police." Although such
funding was allocated for local police and fire units, only a small portion has
made it to the localities. Much of the money has been trapped at the state
level, with state officials complaining that they are having problems meeting
federal requirements established by Homeland Security.

Bush also cut funding in the 20005 budget for the departments Office of
Domestic Preparedness, which give grants to states and localities.

# Kerry twice accused Bush of "cutting the COPS program in America." COPS
(Community Oriented Policing Services), a Clinton-era program, sent $10 billion
in grants to local police to put 100,000 new officers on the streets.

The Justice Department did cut the program this year but, department officials
say, only because the goal of hiring 100,000 officers had been met. The
department started several new community-policing initiatives, such as Project
Safe Neighborhoods.

# Law enforcement statistics emerged again last night when Bush said his
administration has "changed the culture of the FBI to have counterterrorism as
its No. 1 priority. We're communicating better. We're going to reform our
intelligence services to make sure that we get the best intelligence possible."

On Monday, the Justice Department, the FBI's parent agency, released an
internal report that said that despite huge increases in staff and funding, the
bureau leaves one third of al-Qaida intercepts untranslated for extended
periods of time.

The bureau is also more than a year behind on efforts to upgrade its computer
system to track terrorists and prevent internal espionage.

Sun intern David Schoetz contributed to this article.

Copyright + 2004, The Baltimore Sun

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