Obama broadsides Bush in national security address

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in a speech in which he also advocated launching attacks against terrorists in Pakistan, on Wednesday levied heavy accusations against President Bush, including the pronouncement that Bush is “fighting the war the terrorists want us to fight” in Iraq.

“By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences,” Obama said in an address at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

{mosads}“[Osama bin Laden] and his allies know they cannot defeat us on the field of battle or in a genuine battle of ideas,” he added. “But they can provoke the reaction we’ve seen in Iraq: a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies, ties down our military, busts our budgets, increases the pool of terrorist recruits, alienates America, gives democracy a bad name and prompts the American people to question our engagement in the world.”

While Obama’s remarks about Pakistan garnered the most attention, he peppered his speech with attacks on Bush.

“This administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand,” said the senator, who trails Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) in the fight for the Democratic nomination. “I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.”

Rather than protecting the homeland, Obama charged, the Bush administration delivered “a color-coded politics of fear.”

Obama repeatedly criticized Congress for authorizing the war. At the time of the vote, Obama’s two main rivals for the nomination were in the Senate and he was serving in the Illinois state legislature.

“With that vote, Congress became co-author of a catastrophic war,” he said.

In the most-discussed part of the speech, Obama said he would make U.S. military aid to Pakistan contingent on the country taking on the terrorists that are seeking a haven in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges,” Obama said, but added, “if we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”