John Kerry on the Iraq War: Sounds clear to me

John Kerry gave a major speech to the American Legion on September 1 describing his position on the Iraq War.  Despite all the carping criticism from the Big Pundits, largely echoing GOP spin points, on Kerry's alleged vagueness on the war, his criticisms seem pretty clear to me.

I've summarized major points that I found in my own words in bold.  The parts in italics are quotes from Kerry's speech.  For what does Kerry fault the Bush administration on the Iraq War?

* No plan to win the peace

They were unprepared for the looting, insecurity, and insurgency that burst out with the fall of Saddam’s regime.

They failed to secure Iraq’s borders, and so allowed thousands of foreign terrorists, Islamist militants, and intelligence agents to penetrate and destabilize post-war Iraq.

Amazingly, they had no real plan for post-war political transition.  All of this happened despite clear and precise, bipartisan, warnings from Congress, and regional experts.

* Not enough troops for a successful occupation/countinsurgency

* Poor response when insurgency appeared

* Too few international allies

The bottom line is that if I don’t believe we had to be shouldering nearly the entire financial cost of this war – more than $200 billion – and shortchanging investments in education, health care, and our safety at home.

* Too few Iraqi allies

They rushed and short-changed the training and equipment of the Iraqi police; they failed to recruit enough experts in the language and culture of the region and used those they had ineffectively.

* Failed to insure the most basic civil order and security after the initial combat phase

The civilian leadership [of the occupation govenrment] disbanded the Iraqi military completely so there was no internal structure to maintain order; chose consciously to put an American, instead of an international face on the occupation; failed to preparefor a large number of prisoners; and most significantly, failed even to guard nuclear waste and ammunition storage sites, despite the fact that weapons of mass destruction was their fundamental reason for the war.  And some of the weapons we didn’t guard are the very weapons being targeted at our troops today.

* The situation in Iraq is going badly

* Bush ignored the best advice on the war

* Bush and Rummy let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora

I would have relied on American troops in Tora Bora when we had Bin Laden in our sights.  I never would have diverted resources so quickly from Afghanistan before finishing the job.

* Kerry would not have gone to war in Iraq when Bush did

I would’ve given the inspectors the time they needed to do the job.

* Our troops in Iraq are inadequately supplied

* We need to get realistic about the GWOT (global war on terrorism)

In an interview two days ago, the President said we can’t win the war on terror. I absolutely disagree. …

To win the war on terror, we will add 40,000 active duty troops – not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives – and win the battle.  And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.

* We need better intelligence on terrorism than Bush’s administration has provided

We need the best intelligence in the world – so that policy is guided by facts and facts are never distorted by politics.  And to get that, we need to have the best cooperation you’ve ever had from every country in the world.  I know we can do a better job of building that cooperation.  But to do so, we must use every tool in the American arsenal: our diplomacy, our economic policy, our non-governmental organizations, our humanitarian organizations, our values and our ideals.

And this part of his speech provides a good summary of Kerry's positon on the Iraq War:

So when the president says we have the same position on Iraq, I have to respectfully disagree.  Our differences couldn’t be plainer.  And I have set them out consistently.  When it comes to Iraq, it’s not that I would have done one thing differently, I would’ve done almost everything differently. ...

But the question now is not just what we should have done, but what we can and must do now in Iraq. We do not need what President Bush has called "catastrophic success.” We need real success.

We need to bring our allies to our side, share the burdens, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers.  And together, we need to more rapidly train Iraqi police and military to take over the job of protecting their country.  That's what I’ll do as Commander-in-Chief – because that’s the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.