The Vice Presidential candidate stumps in Manchester, previews the Democratic ticket's likely line of attack during Thursday's Presidential debate on National Security.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers has more.
John Edwards said Americans can be assured that John Kerry is resolved to fight terrorism. With a 9/11 widow standing by his side, Edwards promised that Kerry would show no mercy when it comes to true terrorist threats.
"Just to be clear to everyone, everyone in NH, everyone in America, when John Kerry is president we will find these terrorists where they are... we will find the leaders of Al-Qaeda and we will crush them before they do harm to the American people."
Edwards says the Bush administration's approach to terror and the war in Iraq has not made the nation safer. He added that the only people who think that Iraq is going well are President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
"You listen to them and it's absolutely extraordinary. Now don't forget they told is they have a plan for Iraq -- not true. They told us they had enough troops -- not true. They told us this war was going to pay for itself -- not true: 200 billion and counting. And the worst part is what we see right now. You know we lost more troops in September than we lost in August, more troops in August then we did in July. We've lost more troops in July than we did in June."
Edwards says a Kerry administration would immediately boost military enlistment by 40,000; improve intelligence-gathering; shut off terrorists access to money, and rebuild the international alliances he says were destroyed by Bush's unilateralism.
"All these terrorists that are streaming into Iraq are going there for a reason. It's not an accident. George Bush created this reason -- he created the environment for this to happen."
Edward's was joined in Manchester by Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband was killed during in the September 11th attacks. Breitweiser supported Bush in 2000, but says her experience in trying to get to the bottom of what happened on 9/11 has left her disillusioned.
"President Bush fought the creation of a 9/11 commission -- one of the things that was so upsetting things is that had the commission been created...in the days after 9/11 much like the commission that looked into Pearl Harbor. We might never have gone into Iraq, because one of the things the 9/11 found through expert testimony is that there was no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."
The connection between terrorism and the Iraq war were also on the minds of Bush supporters protesting outside the rally. Paul Needham -- who had backed Edwards during the democratic primary and supported the democratic ticket as recently has last month, said Bush's handling of terrorism alone warrants his reelection.
"President Bush didn't choose this war. America did not choose this war. We were forced into this war on September 11. And the fact is the world is safer with Saddam Hussein out of power, the Taliban out of Afghanistan and Al Qaeda on the run."
President Bush and John Kerry will address the topic of national security in their first presidential debate Thursday night in Miami.
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