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CLEVELAND - Sen. John Edwards accused the Bush administration Tuesday night of bungling the war in Iraq and presiding over a historic loss of jobs.
''Your facts are just wrong,'' Vice President Dick Cheney shot back in crackling campaign debate.
In a clash at close quarters, the Democratic vice presidential candidate accused Cheney of ''not being straight'' with the public about a war that has claimed more than 1,000 American lives. He said casualties are rising monthly and the United States is bearing 90 percent of the cost of the conflict as well as suffering 90 percent of the dead and wounded.
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Cheney challenged that, saying the Iraqi security forces had taken nearly half of the casualties. ''For you to demean their sacrifice is beyond the pale,'' he said to Edwards, seated practically at his elbow.
''Oh, I'm not,'' the North Carolina senator protested before Cheney cut him off.
The two men debated exactly four weeks before Election Day in a race for the White House that has drawn closer in recent days. The debate format encouraged give-and-take - and neither the Bush administration's powerful second-in-command nor Sen. John Kerry's running mate shrank from the task in their one and only encounter.
''Frankly, senator, you have a record that's not very distinguished,'' Cheney said to Edwards, citing him for a pattern of absences during his single term in the Senate. In a jab at the Bush-Cheney campaign's claim on experience, Edwards said, ''Mr. Vice President, I don't think the country can take four more years of this type of experience.'' From the first moments of the debate, the vice president also sought to place the war in Iraq into a larger context than Bush was able to emphasize, saying it must be viewed as part of the overall global war on terror.
Cheney, 63, and Edwards, 51, sat a few feet apart around a semicircular table on a stage at Case Western Reserve University.
Edwards was on the attack from the opening of the debate.
He said that in addition to mismanaging the war in Iraq, the administration had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Afghanistan at one point. But, he said, Bush turned over the hunt for the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to Afghan warlords.
''The senator has got his facts wrong,'' said Cheney. ''We've never let up on Osama bin Laden from Day One. We've actively and aggressively pursued him.''
As for Iraq, Cheney said Kerry voted to authorize the war, then voted against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan. He said the Massachusetts senator - as well as Edwards - had changed their mind due to the pressure of the Democratic primary campaign.
''If they couldn't stand up to pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al-Qaida?'' the vice president said. On domestic issues, Edwards said Bush has presided over a loss of jobs during his administration - the first president to do so since Herbert Hoover sat in the White House. He also said more Americans are in poverty, and living without health insurance, than when the president took the oath of office in 2001.
''The economy is on an upswing'' with the creation of jobs, the vice president said. He noted that Bush on Monday had signed his fourth tax cut into law in four years.
Cheney said a Kerry administration would seek to raise taxes - a claim Edwards disputed even before it was spoken. The Democrat said Kerry's proposal calls for rolling back the Bush tax cuts on only those earning $200,000 or more a year.
Cheney, whose daughter, Mary, is a lesbian, said that ''people ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want.'' At the same time, Bush supports passage of a constitutional marriage to ban gay marriage, and Cheney said, ''He sets policy for this administration, and I support him.''
''I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and so does John Kerry,'' Edwards said. But, he added, ''We should not use the Constitution to divide this country.''