Editorial: President’s quagmire

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004 | 8:58 a.m.

National polls have found that voters believe John Kerry is best equipped to handle most of the top domestic issues -- health care, public education and the environment -- findings mirrored in Nevada in a recent Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll. At the same time, however, these surveys show that the public views Bush more favorably at fighting terrorism and in carrying out the war in Iraq. These polls also show that the presidential contest -- nationwide and here in Nevada -- is a statistical dead heat.

That Bush is receiving higher marks than Kerry on foreign policy owes in large part to the fact that the public tends to support an incumbent president during a crisis, especially in wartime. This tends to be the case even when a war isn't going well. Indeed, by any objective measure, Bush's war in Iraq has been a failure. No stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found (the main reason for the invasion) and U.S. military forces find themselves in a quagmire because of poor planning (not enough troops were sent in and not enough serious thought was given to the possibility of an insurgency taking hold).

In another telling example of this poorly executed war, we learned from The New York Times on Monday that almost 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives are missing from a former military facility in Iraq, a facility that U.S. forces didn't secure after the invasion. The Times noted that the explosives include HMX and RDX, which can bring down buildings and jets, can be used as warheads for missiles and can even detonate nuclear weapons. Kerry noted that these missing explosives could fall into the hands of terrorists and very well could be used against our troops.

Although being commander in chief should be a plus, the cumulative impact of events unfolding on the ground in Iraq for more than a year -- including the deaths of more than 1,100 U.S. soldiers -- ultimately could be viewed negatively by enough voters to cost Bush the White House. In our view, for more than a year now it has increasingly become clear that we need a president who will listen to reason -- not advice from ideologues in the Defense Department -- and chart a course that will allow us to finish the job in Iraq and bring our troops home. John Kerry's that man, not George Bush.