Text 3181, 153 rader
Skriven 2004-10-09 15:33:58 av Alan Hess
Ärende: true and false from debate
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/printedition/bal-te.truth09oct09,0,4302682.st
ory?coll=bal-pe-asection
In volley of facts and figures, not all fly
Truth: From taxes to facts about Iraq, both candidates inflated figures and
twisted information to fit their message.


By Mark Matthews and Laura Sullivan
Sun National Staff

October 9, 2004

WASHINGTON - President Bush and Sen. John Kerry both tossed out facts and
numbers like confetti in last night's town hall-style debate - some true, some
misleading. But the most intriguing moments involved the arguments they could
have put forward but didn't.

Kerry, for instance, allowed to stand Bush's denial of his involvement in a
timber company. Bush, for his part, could have rebutted Kerry's criticism that
the United States had failed to press for agreement with other countries in
NATO to train Iraqi security forces.

While talking about creating jobs, Bush charged that Kerry "says he's only
going to tax the rich. Do you realize, 900,000 small businesses will be taxed
under his plan?"

Bush's charge is misleading. The "small businesses" Bush says will be taxed
include hundreds of thousands of wealthy individuals who are claiming to be
"small businesses" even though they may have earned as little as $1 in
individual income, independent tax analysts have said. Such "small businesses"
typically do not create any jobs.

Even if the 900,000 small businesses were in fact businesses, Bush does not
mention that under Kerry's plan the country's 32 million other small businesses
would not receive any tax increase.

The discussion of this issue, though, brought about one of the most visibly
contradictory moments of the night. Kerry said Bush is an example of a wealthy
individual who could claim to be a "small business" for tax purposes, saying
"The president got $84 from a timber company that [he] owns, and he's counted
as a small business."

Bush quickly responded, "I own a timber company? That's news to me. Need some
wood?"

In fact, Kerry was mostly right. On his 2001 tax return, Bush called himself
"part owner" of a timber company, saying he received $84 income from the
company.

Pressing his point that Bush alienated longtime U.S. allies both before and
after the war in Iraq, Kerry said, "Two weeks ago, there was a meeting of the
North Atlantic Council, which is the political arm of NATO. They discussed the
possibility of a small training unit or having a total takeover of the training
in Iraq. Did our administration push for the total training of Iraq? No. Were
they silent? Yes. Was there an effort to bring all the allies together around
that? No."

Bush replied by repeating previous criticism of Kerry's proposal to hold an
international summit on Iraq, which the president predicted would fail because
the Massachusetts Democrat considers the war a mistake.

He neglected to mention that the NATO alliance has been moving toward unity on
sending a training mission to Iraq. In June, it agreed in principle to the
mission. Yesterday, the North Atlantic Council adopted a concept for the
operation that it said was aimed at "substantially enhancing NATO's assistance
to the Iraqi interim government." The number of NATO troops to be sent has not
been decided.

On the issue of homeland security, Bush erred when he said his administration
"tripled the homeland security budget from $10 billion to $30 billion."
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of homeland security
functions in fiscal 2001 was $17 billion with another emergency $4 billion in
funding tacked on after the Sept. 11 attacks. The budget office says the
funding has actually only about doubled to $41 billion since then.

Kerry, though, went too far when he said, "95 percent of our containers coming
into this country are not inspected today. When you get on an airplane, your
bag is X- rayed, but the cargo hold isn't X-rayed."

It's true 95 percent of shipping containers are not hand searched, but that is
largely because they have been cleared by port security before they reached
U.S. ports. Under several new initiatives, all shipping manifests are examined
before ships arrive. Officials say 100 percent of containers deemed "high
risk," such as those coming from suspect countries or of unknown origin, are
hand searched.

Similarly, while most cargo aboard aircraft is not searched, as Kerry said, the
Transportation Security Agency established a database of vetted shippers, which
is used in a risk-weighted screening system. Most cargo is cleared before it
arrives at the airport. Much like the port system, any cargo thought to be
suspicious is either screened or not allowed onto the plane.

As in their previous debates, Bush and Kerry also used sometimes misleading
information.

The two candidates' debate over jobs gained added urgency from the government's
release of new statistics yesterday showing that 96,000 jobs had been created
last month, a figure lower than many economists had anticipated.

Both reiterated past positions that fail to give the whole picture.

The economy has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since bush took office,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it has added close to 1.8
million, for a net loss of 900,000. Manufacturing job losses repeatedly cited
by Kerry had begun under former President Bill Clinton well before Bush came
into office.

Discussing Iraq, Bush claimed in his final statement that the lengthy report
issued this week by chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer "confirmed"
his decision to topple Saddam Hussein.

The report did not provide any opinion on the wisdom of the U.S. invasion,
although Duelfer did conclude that Hussein intended to rebuild his weapons
arsenal once international sanctions had been lifted.

Kerry asserted at one point during the debate that sanctions had worked in
causing Hussein to destroy his weapons stockpile. But Duelfer pointed out that
the sanctions were eroding badly by the late 1990s.

Kerry said that the former Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, was
"retired" by the Bush administration for saying shortly before the war started
in March, 2003 that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed for
post-war stability operations. Shinseki's estimate was slammed by Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as being "wildly off the mark." But Shinseki
was not retired early and served out the remainder of his four-year term.

Long before Shinseki's estimate of post-war troop needs in Iraq, the general
had several brushes with his Pentagon bosses over weapons systems and the
proper size of the Army. In fact, the Pentagon leaked the name of Shinseki's
likely replacement, the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. John Keane, in April
2002, a year before Shinseki's term ended in June, 2003, a move widely seen as
an attempt to undercut Shinseki. Keane eventually did not take the job, which
went to Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.

The Democratic candidate has repeatedly raised the issue of Shinseki's pre-war
troop estimate because of the stubborn insurgency in Iraq. Kerry and many
others are asking whether additional forces early on could have prevented
Iraq's present turmoil. The number of U.S. troops has never exceeded 150,000 in
the country, while Great Britain provided the bulk of the additional 22,000
non-American forces.

Some members of Congress, most notably Sen. John McCain, a Republican from
Arizona, continue to say that more U.S. troops are needed, while the Bush
administration argues that it is Iraqis who must step forward to provide for
their own security.

Staff writers Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Tom Bowman contributed to this
article.

Copyright + 2004, The Baltimore Sun

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