Harsh words from candidates over Iraq

SAGINAW, Mich. — Bitingly personal, President Bush called Sen. John Kerry too weak and wavering for wartime leadership Thursday while the Democrat held Bush responsible for missing explosives in Iraq. "The commander in chief is not getting his job done," Kerry said.

The blunder should cost Bush his presidency, the challenger argued. The Republican incumbent fired back: "John Kerry is the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time."

For the fourth straight day, the candidates exchanged harsh words over the disappearance of nearly 400 tons of explosives stored at Iraq's Al-Qaqaa military installation. The 11th-hour political stir, which Bush advisers say has slowed their campaign, is a reflection of how the war in Iraq and terrorism have overshadowed domestic affairs throughout the campaign.

Their eyes cast abroad, many voters even in economically strapped battleground states are judging the candidates on their ability to lead a nation at war. Thus, character is a final-hours issue.

"A president cannot blow in the wind," Bush said in a stinging reference to Kerry. In neighboring Ohio, the four-term Massachusetts senator called on his rival to "start taking responsibility for the mistakes that you've made."

Chief among them, he said, is Iraq, where insurgents slaughtered 11 Iraqi soldiers Thursday in a bloody reminder of the trouble that awaits whoever sits in the Oval Office at a minute past noon, Jan. 20, 2005.

Five days before Election Day, the polls were close and the crowds huge. Looking out at 10,000 faces at a Bush rally, failed GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole quipped, "I couldn't get a crowd like this in 1996."

Across the country, anxious voters and election officials braced for an uncertain outcome Tuesday. The Justice Department said 1,090 federal poll watchers will be sent to monitor elections in 25 states to assure compliance with voting laws.

With time running short, the campaigns reached into their near-empty arsenals of TV ads. Kerry unveiled a new commercial while the Bush campaign was forced to defend a day-old spot, acknowledging that an editor had doctored a picture of U.S. troops.

Kerry opens his latest commercial with five words that should warm hearts throughout campaign-weary battlegrounds: "Soon, the campaign will end," he said.

Pop culture merged with politics as rocker Bruce Springsteen endorsed Kerry and sang at the Massachusetts senator's rally in Madison, Wis., that drew thousands. Bush didn't have the Boss, but country singer Sammy Kershaw warmed up the crowd in affluent Westlake, Ohio.