Kerry's Discussion With The Daily News

The Daily News reports about a "wide-ranging discussion" between the Daily News Editorial Board and John Kerry.

According to the Daily News:

Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would have sent troops to Haiti even without international support to quell the revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"President Kerry would never have allowed that to get where it is," Kerry said, though he added he's not "a big Aristide fan."

But he insisted the White House "has empowered the insurgents, and they've done it quite purposely out of their dislike ... for Aristide."

A Kerry administration would have given the rebels a 48-hour ultimatum to come up with a peaceful agreement - "otherwise, we're coming in," he said.

"I would intervene with the international community, and absent an international force, I'd do it unilaterally," he said, adding the most important thing was to protect democracy.

Kerry also suggested Bush sat on December's deal to have Khadafy renounce weapons programs to get a political boost. "Khadafy's been trying to get back into the mainstream for several years now," Kerry said. "There's evidence that we could have had that deal some time ago."

As proof, he said he'd heard "from friends in the British government that the deal was in a slow lock," although he declined to give specifics to back it up.

The Daily News also reported that Kerry seemed to flip-flop on his opinion of Israel's controversial security fence, insisting that a past comment questioning the fence was "a not very artfully drawn paragraph" that reflected "the rush of the campaign." He insisted he "completely supports" the fence and only questioned where it's built.

Bush campaign spokesman Kevin Madden called Kerry's comments "reckless and irresponsible" and accused him of "taking a step deeper into conspiracy politics." He said Kerry's remarks "are not befitting a serious candidate for President."

UPDATE: Steven Taylor, at PoliBlog, asks if sending troops to fight indigenous insurgents wanting to overthrow the existing government in a chaotic third world country is what Kerry learned in Vietnam.

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