Kerry resolution demands U.S. troop pullout

WASHINGTON — Sen. John F. Kerry is placing himself at the center of congressional action over the war in Iraq this week with a crisply worded resolution to require President Bush to withdraw almost all U.S. troops by the end of this year.

The measure has exposed Kerry to attacks from Republicans and some Democrats, as critics rushed to tag the plan as a "cut-and-run" strategy. But it also has made him a rallying point for anti-war activists.

The sweeping resolution amounts to the senator's sharpest condemnation of the war — and his broadest repudiation of his own vote to authorize force. It also stands in contrast to his handling of the war issue during his campaign for president two years ago.

"My friends, war is no excuse for its own perpetuation," Kerry said before a group of cheering liberal activists who had gathered in Washington Tuesday for a "Take Back America" conference. "It is essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake — to say the simple words that contain more truth than pride. . . . It was wrong and I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi war resolution."

It was a concise distillation of principles that Kerry did not produce in the presidential campaign, in which his language on Iraq prompted attacks from the Bush campaign that he was weak and inconsistent.

His effort to spell out his views on the war in the clearest possible terms now appears to be partly an attempt to remake his image for a possible second run for the presidency.

In an interview after the speech, Kerry said he has learned from the mistakes of his campaign, including his inability to articulate an easily understood position on the war. Now, drawing on his experience as a Vietnam-veteran-turned-war-critic in the early 1970s, he is making clear that he is a full-throated opponent of the Iraq war.

"It was right to dissent from a war in 1971 that was wrong and could not be won," Kerry said in his speech. "And now, in 2006, it is both a right and an obligation for Americans to stand up to a president who is wrong today, (and) dissent from policies that are wrong today and end a war in Iraq that weakens the nation each and every day we are in it."