Kerry campaign attacks President over 'war honour he did not earn'

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Well now, this looks like it could get interesting.

Kerry campaign attacks President over 'war honour he did not earn'
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 29/08/2004)


Supporters of Senator John Kerry yesterday warned of "blowback" against President George W Bush for the political "attack ads" by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth which have damaged Mr Kerry's election campaign.



After weeks of denigration of the Democratic challenger's Vietnam war record, Mr Kerry's backers have responded with allegations against the President - including the claim that he was once photographed in uniform wearing a medal ribbon he had not earned.

As polls showed that Mr Bush had edged ahead of Mr Kerry for the first time, a pro-Kerry organisation labelled the President an "impostor" over the photograph, taken in 1970 and discovered in his father's Presidential Library in Houston, Texas.

The ribbon is an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award - which was not awarded to the 111th Fighter Intercept Squadron in which Mr Bush served until 1975, five years after the photograph was taken, according to the group US War Report.

"Why is this fraud important? Because it betrays the Honour Code that every officer learns and carries throughout his or her career," said Walt Starr who investigated the medals for the group. Separately a new book, Deserter, by Ian Williams, a British-born author, challenges the President with details of how he used his father's influence to join the Texas Air National Guard as a trainee pilot, thereby avoiding service in Vietnam, and then allegedly disappeared from his base without fulfilling his duty.

"Bush has set himself up, and now that the issue is coming up he is going to have to answer questions on his own documented record," said Williams.

Williams's book offers evidence that Mr Bush stopped training in 1972, and failed to take an annual physical examination demanded of all pilots. Deserter also claims that Mr Bush failed to turn up for duty in Alabama, an omission which could have resulted in a charge of being absent without leave, or even desertion.

MoveOn.com, an independent organisation, has repeated the claim in television advertisements that Mr Bush abandoned his military post and the American media has taken up the story. "Alabama is where serious questions arise over whether or not Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Guard," said William McTavish, a Republican, and editor of the Washington on-line political magazine Capitol Hill Blue.

Mr Bush has strongly denied abandoning his duties. He says he left his Texan unit after requesting transfer to Alabama, so that he could also work on a political campaign.

Asked about the medal ribbon, a White House spokesman said he could not respond until the record had been checked.

Meanwhile a new Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television campaign shows veterans accusing Mr Kerry of "treachery" for testifying that atrocities were committed in Vietnam. Williams warned: "There will be blowback, because it is a documented fact that atrocities occurred, and also that Kerry did not accuse all Vietnam vets of committing them."

Two more months of this stuff