Obama accuses Bush of fear-mongering

Republicans savage his offer to talk to sworn foes

WASHINGTON (AFP)

Democrat Barack Obama accused President George W. Bush and Republican White House pick John McCain of hypocrisy and fear-mongering, stoking an intense campaign row over national security.

The Democratic presidential frontrunner said on Friday he was ready to do battle at anytime and at any place on the Bush and McCain records on foreign policy, after Republicans savaged his offer to talk to sworn U.S. foes like Iran.

"They are trying to fool you, and trying to scare you. They are not telling the truth," Obama said in South Dakota, a day after Bush ignited the row by implying in a speech in Israel that Democrats want to appease terrorists.

"The American people have had enough of the division and the bluster," Obama said, and argued that Bush's Iran policy of declining to talk to Tehran had been a "complete failure" which McCain wanted to prolong.

"George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for," Obama said, portraying US Iraq policy as disastrous, and noting that al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was still at large.

He also accused McCain of misrepresenting his stance towards Hamas, and said the Arizona senator had gone back on his own earlier comments that the United States would eventually have to talk to the militant Palestinian group.

"That's the kind of hypocrisy we've been seeing in our foreign policy. The kind of fear-peddling, fear-mongering that has prevented us from actually making us safe," he said.

Appeasement of terrorists

McCain hit back during a speech to the powerful gun lobby in Kentucky, saying Obama's offer to speak to Iran raised questions about his qualifications.

"Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric ... in unconditional meetings with a man who called Israel a stinking corpse, an armed terrorist who kills Americans, will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program," he said, referring to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

"It is reckless, it is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests. It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies. But that's not the world we live in," McCain said.

"And until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment, and determination to keep us safe."

Obama, who holds an overwhelming lead over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic nominating race, referred to an article by former Clinton administration official James Rubin which charged McCain said in an interview two years ago that "sooner or later" Washington would have to deal with Hamas.

McCain has said Hamas wants Obama to be the next president, after Hamas aide Ahmed Yousef reportedly said he hoped the Illinois senator would capture the White House.

The McCain campaign insisted Rubin took the comments out of context.

Bush on Thursday implicitly compared Democratic policies to the 1930s appeasement of the Nazis, during a speech in Israel's parliament.

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before. We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," he said, drawing parallels with the 1930s capitulation to the Nazis.

"That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world," Obama said of Bush's comments.