Gore hammers Bush
2003-08-08 10:29
Washington - Former US vice-president Al Gore on Thursday launched a blistering attack against President George W Bush, but again ruled out running against him in 2004.
Gore, who lost against Bush in the disputed 2000 election, attacked the Republican president over the Iraq war, the faltering economy, the environment and a host of other issues.
"The direction in which our nation is being led is deeply troubling to me - not only in Iraq but also here at home on economic policy, social policy and environmental policy," Gore said.
Gore, who now works for an investment firm, praised the field of nine Democrats vying for their party nomination to challenge Bush for the White House but said, "I am not going to join them".
On the Iraq war, he said, "the evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction".
"So our invasion of Iraq had no effect on al-Qaeda, other than to boost their recruiting efforts," Gore told a meeting of the left-leaning group MoveOn.org in New York.
He also hammered Bush on the ailing US economy, continued job losses and a record budget deficit that Gore called an "emerging fiscal catastrophe".
On global climate change, Gore accused Bush of mishandling and making selective use of the "best available evidence" in a way that mirrored his use of questionable intelligence before the Iraq war.
The Bush administration had rejected the Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and "tried to protect the oil and coal industries from any restrictions at all", said Gore.
"Ironically, the principal cause of global warming is our civilisation's addiction to burning massive quantities of carbon- based fuels, including principally oil," said Gore.
Bush had sent US troops to the Persian Gulf for "the second war in a dozen years - at least partly to ensure our continued access to oil", said Gore. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA