Bush says Kerry has "election amnesia"

President George W. Bush said yesterday Senator John Kerry has a case of "election amnesia" that led him to shift his stance on Iraq, painting his Democratic rival as a waverer unfit to lead America in threatening times.

Campaigning in the pivotal state of Florida 10 days before Election Day, Bush lambasted Kerry for criticising the Iraq invasion despite his prewar vote to authorise force there and his warnings about the danger of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"The senator used to recognise that Saddam Hussein was a gathering threat who hated America," Bush told thousands of supporters at a baseball park in Fort Myers. He said Kerry "seems to have forgotten all that" and suggested the Massachusetts senator had adapted his views for political gain.

Kerry has insisted his views on Iraq have been consistent and he has faulted the president for alienating allies in the way he went to war and the timing of it.

Bush launched the March 2003 invasion of Iraq pledging to rid it of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but a government panel has since concluded such stockpiles were not there and Iraq had not manufactured any in over a decade. The mounting US death toll has put Bush on the defensive about Iraq but he has worked to neutralise Kerry's criticisms over it by calling him a flip-flopper.

"If anyone has amnesia, it's George Bush," said Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer. "He's trying to forget the mistakes he's made the last two years."

Aiming to highlight the topic of national security, which polls show is his strongest issue, Bush warned that Americans remained vulnerable to militants who were "still dangerous and determined to strike us again."

Meanwhile, in Pueblo, Colorado, Democratic presidential nominee and Vietnam War veteran John Kerry tried to burnish his national security credentials yesterday by vowing to hunt down terrorists with the same energy he used to pursue the Viet Cong. The Massachusetts senator also kept up his attack on President George W. Bush, accusing his Republican rival of allowing Osama bin Laden to "walk out of the back door."

"This president keeps going around the country trying to scare people," Kerry told thousands of supporters at an outdoor rally in Pueblo. "He talks about only one thing. The only thing he wants to talks about is terror, the war on terror, national security. If that's the debate he wants to have, I'm prepared to have that debate because I can wage a better war on terror than George Bush has."

Kerry and Bush have stayed on the offensive since their final debate 10 days ago, trying to fire up core supporters and reach out to a small band of undecided voters in states like Colorado, who could decide the election.

Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have tried to raise doubts about Kerry's ability to fight the war on terror launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks, suggesting he would not pursue terrorists aggressively enough.