WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Presidential candidate John Kerry is correct to say President Bush's focus on Iraq has diverted attention away from the war on terror, a journalist says.
James Fallows, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly magazine and former editor of U.S. News and World Report, says Bush's switch in direction has made the United States more vulnerable to terror.
Fallow spoke Thursday at the New America Foundation, a non-profit public policy institute where he is chairman of the board.
In the October issue of the Atlantic, Fallow's cover story "Bush's Lost Year," uses comments from military and administration sources to argue that Bush abandoned his opportunity at the start of 2002 to win a striking victory in Afghanistan and curtail international terrorism by shifting focus to Iraq.
He said that the debate over whether Iraq is an essential part of the war on terror or an obstacle to it is the axis on which the election will turn and that Kerry will need a "heroic performance" in Thursday's debate to articulate this idea clearly and decisively to America.
