Thursday, March 11, 2004 | 8:56 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- A reminder that Nevada's senators belong to different political parties came Wednesday as Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., blasted Democratic presidential contender Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Ensign criticized Kerry during a budget debate on the Senate floor Wednesday for a comment Kerry made in Democratic radio address Saturday about the state of the American military's readiness at the start of the Iraq War.
"Sen. Kerry has woven a picture of incompetence and malfeasance by our military leaders and our president," Ensign said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
Kerry said last week the "secretary of the Army admitted that U.S. forces were 'not prepared' for the present conflict in Iraq; that they didn't have the preparation and hardware they needed to fight as effectively as they could with the greatest margin of security for them.
"If I am president, I will be prepared to use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests. But I will never send our troops into harm's way without enough firepower and support."
Ensign said these were "strong words" but that "words alone offer little in this context and in the overall context of our budget discussions."
He said Kerry was one of only 12 senators to vote against the Iraqi supplemental bill last year, which had money to go for items like body armor and vehicles for the troops.
"If we had allowed Sen. Kerry to make the decision, our troops would indeed be ill prepared," Ensign said.
"I call upon Sen. Kerry to retract his comments about our military being unprepared and to apologize to the men and women of our armed forces for using their sacrifices as political fodder," he said.
The Kerry campaign did not return a call on Wednesday.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who Monday said he and other Senate Democrats will do anything to protect their nominee, did not have a response to Ensign's comment, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. He was en route to Las Vegas for former Gov. Mike O'Callaghan's funeral and was not planning to respond, she said.
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