If Bush is reelected, ''he will repeat, somewhere else, the same reckless mistakes that have made America less secure

''Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," Kerry told anaudience. ''But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

He blamed Bush for ''colossal failures of judgment."

''This is stubborn incompetence," he said.

Even some prominent Republicans, including Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, have openly questioned the rate of progress on the ground in Iraq.

Boston.com Kerry accuses Bush of 'reckless mistakes':