Kerry gears up for election of a lifetime

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry joined forces with former rival Howard Dean and promised to restore trust in the White House and "tell you the truth".

Kerry told a boisterous college-campus rally at George Washington University that his battle with President George W. Bush in November was "the election of a generation, if not a lifetime". He said his campaign for the White House would make public life a noble profession again.

"It begins by restoring people's trust that what we say we mean and that we mean what we say, that the things we talk about in a campaign are not promises to be broken, they are promises to be kept," Kerry said.

Kerry made no reference to the controversy over charges by former counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke that Bush undermined the war on terror, did not take the terror threat seriously before the September 11, 2001, attacks and was fixated with going to war in Iraq.

But the Massachusetts senator promised the predominantly college-age crowd that "I, as president, will tell you the truth and never take this nation to war on false information, false pretences, a false basis".

He was joined by Dean, the former Vermont governor and one-time front-runner in the Democratic race, who waged a sometimes bitter battle with Kerry during the primary campaign but endorsed him enthusiastically.

Dean, whose blunt criticism of the Iraq war and Bush helped to embolden other Democrats during the primary campaign, waded into the controversy over the charges by Clarke, whose credibility has been attacked by Bush Administration figures.

"I got such a kick out of seeing the president huff and puff and get all indignant over the testimony of Richard Clarke this week," Dean told the crowd.

"The real issue is this: Who would you rather have in charge of the defence of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life or a guy who served this country honourably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

- REUTERS