DUBUQUE, United States (AFP) - Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry used the missing explosives in Iraq to underscore President George W. Bush`s weakness on security issues, as both candidates continued to canvass for votes that can swing a tight election their way next Tuesday.
"What did the president have to say about the missing explosives? Not a word. Complete silence," Kerry said Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada, as Bush declined to publicly mention the controversy in campaign appearances.
"George Bush has not offered a single word of explanation ... he failed to secure Iraq and keep it from becoming what it is today -- a haven for terrorists," Kerry later said in a speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
While Bush avoided the controversy over the disappearance of 350 tonnes of high explosives in Iraq, his Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld downplayed the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"It is not at all clear that those explosives were even at the weapons facility when our troops arrived in the area of Baghdad. John Kerry doesn`t mention that," Cheney said at a rally in Pensacola, Florida.
"Do you remember when the museum - everyone said the museum was looted?" Rumsfeld said in an interview with a Cincinnati, Ohio, radio station, comparing the missing explosives to reports about massive looting at Iraq`s national museum after the start of the war, which later proved to be exaggerated.
Rumsfeld said the US military had destroyed over 240,000 tonnes of weapons and captured another 160,000 tonnes in Iraq, and made clear that he believed the missing explosives could still be located.
On a four-stop, day-long bus tour through Wisconsin and Iowa, Bush kept up attacks on Kerry`s national security credentials but placed a special focus on economic policies -- defending his tax cuts and attacking Kerry`s proposals.
"My opponent promises to raise their taxes and, unfortunately for our small-business owners, that`s a promise most politicians tend to keep," Bush told supporters crowded into an ice hockey rink in Onalaska, Wisconsin.
"The bottom line about our economic visions is this: To pay for all his new spending he`s proposed, my opponent will have to raise taxes not just on small-business owners, but on everyone who`s ever worked for a small business, shopped at a small business or walked by a small business," he quipped.
Bush meanwhile got a boost from the West Coast with word that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would be campaigning alongside him in the critical state of Ohio next Friday.
With polls showing the race tight, the Republican president and his Democratic rival kicked off the last seven days of campaigning through the Midwest.
Kerry concentrated on national security, which polls show is uppermost in voters` minds. He said Bush had over the past four years "failed to make America as safe and secure as we should be."
Kerry also lambasted Bush over a Washington Post report that the administration would next year make a new request for funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We have learned that the president wants an additional 70 billion dollars of your money by early next year for Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total cost to 225 billion dollars.
"Mr President, what else are you being silent about? What else are you keeping from the American people? How much more will the American people have to pay?"
Tracking surveys by the Washington Post and Rasmussen group put Kerry ahead by a point or two; the Los Angeles Times had the race even.
But Zogby International gave the president a three-point edge at 49-46 percent. The TIPP polling organization showed his lead widening in the last three days to eight points at 50-42 percent and Gallup placed it at 51-46 percent.
The numbers were murkier on the state level, where both sides were battling to stitch together the 270 electoral votes that decide the presidency. Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania drew most of the attention but remained too close to call.
Kerry`s campaign, after welcoming the return on Monday of former president Bill Clinton, on Tuesday said it got an additional boost from rock icon Bruce Springsteen, who will perform at John Kerry rallies in the last days leading up to the November 2 vote.
Bush on Wednesday will attend rallies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, while Kerry will travel to Iowa and Minnesota.

10/27/2004 - 13:53 GMT - AFP