ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Democratic Sen. John Kerry on Thursday accused President Bush of "sugarcoating" the reality in Iraq as the country falls into more violence and chaos with each passing day.

"The president runs around sugarcoating this thing every day and we've lost 1,000 people," Kerry told voters in New Mexico. "And there (is) more territory in the hold of terrorists, more territory in the hold of insurgents and jihadists. And there are more terrorists in Iraq than there ever were before."

Earlier Thursday, Kerry delivered the same message to a conference of National Guard veterans in Las Vegas. Kerry, speaking from the same stage where Bush appeared two days earlier, said the Republican incumbent "failed that fundamental test of leadership — he failed to tell you the truth."

"His own intelligence officials have warned him for weeks that the mission in Iraq is in serious trouble," Kerry told National Guard veterans. "That is the truth, as hard as it is to bear. . . . I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin."

The National Intelligence Council, in a classified document, presented Bush this summer with three gloomy scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq, including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005.

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized Kerry's remarks, saying the Democrat's position on Iraq changes with the political winds. He noted that Kerry voted to give the president authority to go to war with Iraq, then voted against $87 billion in funding for the troops and reconstruction.

"True leadership is sticking with the decision in the face of political pressure and true leadership is standing for your principles regardless of your audience or your most recent political advisers," he said.

Bush also faced tough assessments of Iraq from quarters that typically would echo the commander in chief. The head of the Army Reserve said his force of part-time soldiers has yet to fully adapt to the demands of a global war on terrorism. And a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said the situation in Iraq is deteriorating.

"The worst thing we can do is hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion that we're winning," said Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran. "Right now we're not winning. Things are getting worse."