WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (AFP) - Senator John Kerry, the losing candidate in the US presidential election last November, accused the US government Tuesday of ignoring offers of aid and support for the Iraqi security forces from its allies.
Kerry also defended his national security stance in the election, saying that President George W. Bush had belatedly adopted his ideas.
"If we had started earlier doing the things I proposed, we would be far better off today," he told reporters.
Kerry expressed satisfaction at the recent warming of relations between the US and its Nato allies, arising from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's visit to Europe.
But he said a number of allied leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, had told him in recent weeks that the Bush government had not followed up on their offers of assistance.
Mubarak, whom he met three weeks ago, complained of offering the US support for training Iraqis but getting no response, Kerry said. The king of Jordan was likewise prepared to offer more help in training Iraqi soldiers.
Revisiting his failure in the November polls, the Massachusetts senator insisted his national security policy was stronger and more creative than the Bush administration's.
"My security proposals were smack on," he said, pointing to the need for allied support in Iraq.
While he was pleased that the government had adopted some of his own proposals, he characterized it as "still slow, still late".
But he conceded having lost the war of perceptions in the election.
"We proposed a far more effective way to make America safer," he said, but voters still showed greater trust in Bush.
Most voters, he noted, still mistakenly believed on the day before the election that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that Saddam Husein was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
02/15/2005 18:18 GMT - AFP