"here's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."
Doug
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Chicago Tribune - July 27, 2004
Obama says war to decide election David Mendell and Jeff Zeleny, Tribune staff reporters
Barack Obama, who will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, said Monday that he believes the Iraq war will be the deciding factor in the presidential contest, but that he does not think there is a great difference "on paper" between presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and President Bush on the issue.
Instead, Obama, the U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, said he believes the Bush administration has lost too much credibility in the world community to administer the policies necessary to stabilize Iraq.
"On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago," Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."
Stephanie Cutter, communications director for the Kerry campaign, did not dispute Obama's statement, but said the true comparison rests in the differences over the past two years.
"If you look on paper, [Bush] has come our way, but he has come our way at a significant cost in terms of blood and treasure," Cutter said Monday. "Bush finally agreed to go to the international community, but in voters' minds that doesn't change their opinion as to why we're at war or how the president mismanaged the war from day one."
Obama, a state senator from Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, opposed the Iraq invasion before the war. But he now believes U.S. forces must remain to stabilize the war-ravaged nation--a policy not dissimilar to the current approach of the Bush administration.
The problem, Obama said, is the low regard for Bush in the international community.
"How do you stabilize a country that is made up of three different religious and in some cases ethnic groups, with minimal loss of life and minimum burden to the taxpayers?" Obama said. "I am skeptical that the Bush administration, given baggage from the past three years, not just on Iraq. . . . I don't see them having the credibility to be able to execute. I mean, you have to have a new administration to execute what the Bush administration acknowledges has to happen."
A Bush spokesman said the Democrats' comments are not representative of Bush's policy and again reveal the inconsistency of Kerry's Iraq stance. Kerry voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq; Obama said he would have voted against it.
"John Kerry is three days from being nominated, and he has yet to offer a coherent position on the war on terror and Iraq," said Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt, adding that "more than 32 nations" support the United States on Iraq.
Thus far, Obama's week at the convention has been a frenzy of activity. Nearly everywhere he goes, he is mobbed by well-wishers, reporters and others who want a moment of his time.
"It's getting incrementally harder to move him through crowds," said his campaign manager, Jim Cauley, as Obama pressed the flesh at an Illinois delegation reception Sunday night.
Despite this celebrity, Obama found himself just another attendee without coveted credentials trying to work his way into the FleetCenter on Monday afternoon. Running late for interviews with Illinois television stations, Obama's aides and advance staff could not locate each other amid the security fences and walls outside the arena.
Eventually, the entourage stumbled across the media entrance, where Obama stood in line a bit before a Secret Service agent recognized him and allowed him to pass, leaving his flustered aides outside.