Kerry Pins Medals Flap On GOP

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Monday rejected as a Republican-driven controversy renewed questions over his claim to have thrown away his Navy medals during a 1971 Vietnam War protest.

Kerry has said for years that he threw away his ribbons, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star during the April 1971 protest. On Monday, however, a tape of a television interview Kerry gave shortly after the protest suggested he was talking about more than his ribbons when discussing the anti-war demonstration.

In an exchange, aired by ABC and published in The New York Times, an interviewer asks Kerry, "How many did you give back, John?" Kerry responds, "I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine." The host then notes that Kerry had won the Purple Hearts and Bronze and Silver stars. Kerry says, "Well, and above that, I gave back my others."

Nearly 800 veterans "gave back" their medals by throwing them over a fence near the Capitol. Kerry has said he also threw over the fence the medals of two other veterans who had asked him to give them back.

Kerry denied Monday that his statements have been inconsistent. He said ribbons were often referred to as medals.

"Back then ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable," Kerry told "Good Morning America" on ABC. "The U.S. Navy pamphlet calls them medals. We all referred to them as the symbols they were representing. Medals, ribbons ... countless veterans threw the ribbons back."

The protest took place the same week Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on behalf of the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Today Kerry dismisses any criticism of his war record.

"I'm not going to let someone who cant even prove that he did his National Guard service actually start questioning what we did in 1971 in protest of the war," Kerry told Pitts.

"The fact is I have been accurate precisely about what took place, and I am the one who later made clear exactly what happened," Kerry told ABC. "This is a controversy the Republicans are pushing."

The anti-Bush political group MoveOn PAC released a 60-second television ad Monday comparing Kerry's service in Vietnam to President Bush's record with the Texas Air National Guard. Mr. Bush has been criticized for being unable to account for some periods of his Guard service.

"This election is about character," the ad concludes. "It's between John Kerry, who left no man behind ... and George W. Bush, who simply left."

The group is spending a small amount — $115,000 — to run the ad nationally on Fox News Channel and on CNN in Washington, D.C., and New York City media markets.

Also Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney launched

Cheney's speech signaled the start of a $10 million Republican ad campaign that claims Kerry has "repeatedly opposed weapons vital to winning the war on terror."

"That's the most bogus thing I've ever heard in my life," Kerry said in an interview with CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts. "I have voted for the largest defense budgets in the history of our country."

The Democratic National Committee chairman urged the White House to stop such attacks.

"Call off the Republican attack dogs," DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe told reporters in Washington. Half a country away, Cheney told a friendly crowd at Westminster College that Kerry wavered in views to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as well as the strength of the Persian Gulf war coalition built by President Bush's father.

"In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of 100 in the U.S. Senate and fortunately on matters of national security, he was often the minority. But the president always casts the deciding vote and the senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security," Cheney said.

The vice president's speech coincides with a $10 million television advertising spree by the Bush re-election campaign, starting this week, that seeks to portray Kerry as weak on national security. Other Bush ads have questioned the Massachusetts senator's fitness for the presidency because he voted against a $87 billion funding measure for U.S. troops in Iraq. Bush, Kerry has said, threatened to veto the bill.

"George Bush has sent Dick Cheney to kick off a misleading ad campaign attacking John Kerry's commitments to defending America. And Dick Cheney is still able to stand by with a straight face and watch these attacks unfold," McAuliffe said during a news conference.

"The American people have better things to do with their time than listen to more misleading attacks from a man who has been misleading them from the day he took office," McAuliffe said. He added that Cheney has little standing to criticize on national security, since he sought to cut U.S. troop strength and kill 81 weapons systems during his years as secretary of defense.

The president and vice president have some politically tricky events on their calendar this week.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case seeking to force the disclosure of members of Cheney's energy task force. The president and vice president testify together and in private Thursday before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks.

Saturday marks the first anniversary of Mr. Bush's visit to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, where, under a giant banner proclaiming ``Mission Accomplished,'' he declared the end of major combat in Iraq. Most of the more than 700 U.S. troops killed in Iraq lost their lives after Mr. Bush's May 1, 2003, declaration.