Friday, October 29, 2004
Kerry Campaign Seizes on Halliburton Probe
Email this StoryOct 29, 9:51 AM (ET)By CALVIN WOODWARD and TOM RAUM
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WASHINGTON (AP) - After days of trying to make political hay over lost Iraqi explosives, the Democratic ticket turned Friday to an FBI probe of Halliburton as evidence of Bush administration special favors to special interests. President Bush was campaigning with actor-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"We need a president and a vice president of the United States who consistently stand up for the interests of the American people, and that's not what we're seeing right now," Democratic running mate John Edwards said on CBS Friday morning.
Edwards was even more pointed Thursday night when he told 3,000 people at a Davenport, Iowa, rally, "You cannot stand with Halliburton, big oil companies and the Saudi royal family and still stand up for the American people."
Bush turned to a pair of American heroes for affirmation of his re-election bid. Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw the combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, saluted his old boss Thursday night. Bush also was getting the endorsement of freshly minted World Series champion pitcher Curt Schilling. The Boston Red Sox player had planned to appear Friday with Bush, but his doctors advised him not to travel because of his injured ankle, Bush aides said.
After his appearance in New Hampshire, Bush was to share the stage in Ohio with California Gov. and movie star Schwarzenegger.
The stars that counted for Bush on Thursday were those earned by a lineup of retired military officers who joined him before a crowd of more than 10,000 in suburban Cleveland. Chief among the brass was Franks, who saluted Bush and said Kerry "disrespects our troops."
"God bless you, Tommy," Bush said as he took the microphone from him.
Kerry headed for Florida, his campaign sorting through a series of unwelcome developments for the Republicans.
This late in the game, any miscue is ripe for exploitation, and the Republicans committed a few - in one instance watching former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani explain himself after seeming to blame troops in Iraq for the missing explosives.
The Bush campaign, seeing an unusual opportunity to make gains on exotic Democratic turf, said Thursday that Cheney would go to Hawaii for a rally Sunday night, a striking investment of time and travel for a state Republicans have won only twice since statehood in 1959.
The Democrats weren't standing by. Al Gore, who won the state by nearly 20 points four years ago, was on his way to campaign there and so was Kerry's daughter Alex.
"We are competitive in the state; this is a very close race," Bush spokeswoman Anne Womack said, attributing growing GOP support to fears of terrorism in the tourist haven.
Kerry's running mate quickly went on the offensive when word came out that the FBI had begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid Iraq reconstruction contracts to Halliburton Co. (HAL), the Houston-based company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"At every turn for the past four years, George Bush and Dick Cheney gave out special favors and looked out for their special interest friends," Edwards said.
Democrats long have accused the Bush administration of showing favoritism to Halliburton, but had trouble making the charges stick after congressional investigators found the company got no-bid contracts in part because no other firms could do the work.
Still, the matter is far from closed. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show FBI agents sought permission this week to interview Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer who went public with allegations that her agency unfairly awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to Halliburton subsidiary KBR.
Almost everywhere that counted, polls found the race exceptionally close. Internal campaign polls found it closer still.
New battleground surveys suggested Kerry was leading in Ohio and Michigan, Bush was ahead in Florida and the two were tied in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Oregon.
Bush told USA Today he hasn't spent any time worrying that the campaign could end with no clear winner, as the 2000 race notoriously did.
"It's important that everybody vote, it's important that the elections be fair, and it's important that the election end on election night," he said in an interview published Friday.
Kerry, also speaking with USA Today on Thursday, said he believes the outcome will be known Tuesday night, "just like I believed the Red Sox would win the World Series."
Bush launched a stinging character assault on Kerry, telling thousands in Saginaw, Mich., "a president cannot blow in the wind, a president must make tough decisions and stand by them."
Bush advisers said their candidate was making gains in internal polls until Kerry's relentless attack on the disappearance of nearly 400 tons of explosives from an Iraqi weapons dump - an occurrence dating from the fall of Baghdad last year that both sides acknowledge is not fully understood.
Franks counterpunched, saying troops have destroyed 240,000 tons of Iraqi munitions, control an additional 162,000 tons and have cleared 10,000 ammunition and weapons sites. He said Kerry has no standing to label Bush as negligent on the missing cache.
In an interview Thursday with "NBC Nightly News," Kerry said that if he'd been president then, "we might have gone to war," but he would have done so in a way that ensured "the American people weren't carrying the burden and the entire world understood."
Of Saddam Hussein's fate, Kerry said: "It's absolutely impossible and irresponsible to suggest that if I were president, he wouldn't necessarily be gone. He might be gone. Because if he hadn't complied (with U.N. demands), we might have had to go to war."
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Associated Press writer Tom Raum, traveling with Bush, reported from Westlake, Ohio; AP writer Mary Dalrymple, traveling with Kerry, also contributed to this report.
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Email this StoryOct 29, 9:51 AM (ET)By CALVIN WOODWARD and TOM RAUM
.
WASHINGTON (AP) - After days of trying to make political hay over lost Iraqi explosives, the Democratic ticket turned Friday to an FBI probe of Halliburton as evidence of Bush administration special favors to special interests. President Bush was campaigning with actor-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"We need a president and a vice president of the United States who consistently stand up for the interests of the American people, and that's not what we're seeing right now," Democratic running mate John Edwards said on CBS Friday morning.
Edwards was even more pointed Thursday night when he told 3,000 people at a Davenport, Iowa, rally, "You cannot stand with Halliburton, big oil companies and the Saudi royal family and still stand up for the American people."
Bush turned to a pair of American heroes for affirmation of his re-election bid. Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw the combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, saluted his old boss Thursday night. Bush also was getting the endorsement of freshly minted World Series champion pitcher Curt Schilling. The Boston Red Sox player had planned to appear Friday with Bush, but his doctors advised him not to travel because of his injured ankle, Bush aides said.
After his appearance in New Hampshire, Bush was to share the stage in Ohio with California Gov. and movie star Schwarzenegger.
The stars that counted for Bush on Thursday were those earned by a lineup of retired military officers who joined him before a crowd of more than 10,000 in suburban Cleveland. Chief among the brass was Franks, who saluted Bush and said Kerry "disrespects our troops."
"God bless you, Tommy," Bush said as he took the microphone from him.
Kerry headed for Florida, his campaign sorting through a series of unwelcome developments for the Republicans.
This late in the game, any miscue is ripe for exploitation, and the Republicans committed a few - in one instance watching former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani explain himself after seeming to blame troops in Iraq for the missing explosives.
The Bush campaign, seeing an unusual opportunity to make gains on exotic Democratic turf, said Thursday that Cheney would go to Hawaii for a rally Sunday night, a striking investment of time and travel for a state Republicans have won only twice since statehood in 1959.
The Democrats weren't standing by. Al Gore, who won the state by nearly 20 points four years ago, was on his way to campaign there and so was Kerry's daughter Alex.
"We are competitive in the state; this is a very close race," Bush spokeswoman Anne Womack said, attributing growing GOP support to fears of terrorism in the tourist haven.
Kerry's running mate quickly went on the offensive when word came out that the FBI had begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid Iraq reconstruction contracts to Halliburton Co. (HAL), the Houston-based company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"At every turn for the past four years, George Bush and Dick Cheney gave out special favors and looked out for their special interest friends," Edwards said.
Democrats long have accused the Bush administration of showing favoritism to Halliburton, but had trouble making the charges stick after congressional investigators found the company got no-bid contracts in part because no other firms could do the work.
Still, the matter is far from closed. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show FBI agents sought permission this week to interview Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer who went public with allegations that her agency unfairly awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to Halliburton subsidiary KBR.
Almost everywhere that counted, polls found the race exceptionally close. Internal campaign polls found it closer still.
New battleground surveys suggested Kerry was leading in Ohio and Michigan, Bush was ahead in Florida and the two were tied in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Oregon.
Bush told USA Today he hasn't spent any time worrying that the campaign could end with no clear winner, as the 2000 race notoriously did.
"It's important that everybody vote, it's important that the elections be fair, and it's important that the election end on election night," he said in an interview published Friday.
Kerry, also speaking with USA Today on Thursday, said he believes the outcome will be known Tuesday night, "just like I believed the Red Sox would win the World Series."
Bush launched a stinging character assault on Kerry, telling thousands in Saginaw, Mich., "a president cannot blow in the wind, a president must make tough decisions and stand by them."
Bush advisers said their candidate was making gains in internal polls until Kerry's relentless attack on the disappearance of nearly 400 tons of explosives from an Iraqi weapons dump - an occurrence dating from the fall of Baghdad last year that both sides acknowledge is not fully understood.
Franks counterpunched, saying troops have destroyed 240,000 tons of Iraqi munitions, control an additional 162,000 tons and have cleared 10,000 ammunition and weapons sites. He said Kerry has no standing to label Bush as negligent on the missing cache.
In an interview Thursday with "NBC Nightly News," Kerry said that if he'd been president then, "we might have gone to war," but he would have done so in a way that ensured "the American people weren't carrying the burden and the entire world understood."
Of Saddam Hussein's fate, Kerry said: "It's absolutely impossible and irresponsible to suggest that if I were president, he wouldn't necessarily be gone. He might be gone. Because if he hadn't complied (with U.N. demands), we might have had to go to war."
---
Associated Press writer Tom Raum, traveling with Bush, reported from Westlake, Ohio; AP writer Mary Dalrymple, traveling with Kerry, also contributed to this report.
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