The war of words over the failure of US forces to find 350 tonnes of explosives in Iraq escalated yesterday when President Bush accused Senator John Kerry of rushing to judgment before all the facts were known, writes Conor O'Clery in Lititz, Pennsylvania
"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief," Mr Bush told a rally in the town of Lititz, Pennsylvania.
This was Mr Bush's first response after remaining silent for two days as Mr Kerry charged that his administration had shown incompetence and put the lives of American soldiers at risk by not providing enough troops to secure post-invasion Iraq.
The report in Monday's New York Times of the looting of high explosives from bunkers that had been sealed by UN weapons inspectors has become a major issue in the closing days of the bitter presidential campaign.
"The senator is making wild charges about missing explosives," Mr Bush said.
"The munitions may have been moved before our troops arrived. The senator is denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts."
Mr Joe Lockhart, a Kerry campaign spokesman, said that rather than taking the situation seriously, Mr Bush had "opted to give a political response and launched yet another negative attack.
"For a commander in chief to side-step these important questions and somehow imply that John Kerry does anything less than fully support our troops is beneath contempt," Mr Lockhart said.
A US army unit that entered the site in April 2003 during the invasion did not have orders to look for the explosives, and looting took place before US soldiers returned, the New York Times reported.
Mr Bush said: "Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site. This investigation is important and it's ongoing.
"If Saddam Hussein would still be in power, he would control all those weapons and explosives and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies."
Mr Kerry repeated his charges yesterday, telling rallies the President had "stood in front of the American people day after day, telling us how much progress we were making in Iraq, and how much safer we were under his leadership, without telling us about these explosives".