Kerry opposes troop realignment.

Kerry to set out case against US troop realignment
By James Harding in Washington and Peter Spiegel in London
Published: August 17 2004 22:00 | Last updated: August 17 2004 22:00

John Kerry will on Wednesday set out his opposition to the Bush administration's plans to bring home 70,000 US troops from permanent overseas bases, leaving their future dependent on the outcome of the presidential election.

Setting out one of the few clear strategic differences between himself and George W. Bush, Mr Kerry is expected to argue that the withdrawal of troops from Europe and Asia threatens to undercut alliances and weakens America's ability to project its power overseas.

White House officials described the realignment as addressing an outdated distribution of US forces, a legacy of the cold war ill-suited to defeating terrorists.

But Mr Kerry will make what Michael Meehan, a senior adviser to the Democratic presidential candidate, called a "sweeping critique" of the realignment in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati the same venue where Mr Bush this week announced the planned withdrawal of a third of US forces from their foreign posts.

Wesley Clark, the retired general now campaigning on Mr Kerry's behalf, on Tuesday offered a taste of the Democratic opposition to a realignment he called "a strategic mistake".

He said US forces should stay in South Korea and Germany, arguing that Washington was still in a stand-off with a dangerous enemy in North Korea and that the European bases served as "anchor points" for dealing with potential security threats in Africa, the Middle East and the Caucasus.

Mr Clark questioned the mooted cost savings, warned against the damage to US alliances and made the case that the US would be better off having forces stationed in Europe and Asia.

One foreign policy adviser to Mr Kerry said Mr Bush's speech to 15,000 VFW delegates on Monday was "playing politics with national security", an announcement designed to reinforce his image as commander-in-chief while presenting a positive message about bringing troops home.

But the Bush camp has insisted that the redeployment was based on the views of the military and had been planned long before the election season.

There are roughly 26m military veterans in the US, roughly 13 per cent of the voting-age population. Their vote is particularly important in states such as Florida, one of the handful of battleground states where polls have recently shown Mr Kerry inching ahead of Mr Bush.

But, speaking at a Kerry-Edwards campaign event on Tuesday, Mr Clark said the Clinton administration had made a sufficient post-cold war re-adjustment. He dismissed the latest proposed redeployment as a "shell game" designed to enable the Bush administration to funnel the troops it needs into Iraq.

The announcement has caused some political problems for the German government. Regional officials have warned of large-scale economic problems in cities that house US bases, and several leading opposition figures, including Edmund Stoiber, premier of the southern state home to most American forces, has already called for federal assistance.