US President George W. Bush and his rival for the White House, Senator John Kerry, clashed over the war in Iraq on Monday as the two candidates tried to depict themselves as the better choice for leadership in the age of terrorism.

During a rally in Dover, New Hampshire, Kerry blasted Bush for the failure to secure 380 tons of explosives now missing in Iraq, saying the incident was "one of the great blunders" of the Iraq war.

"George W. Bush, who talks tough, and brags about making America safer has once again failed to deliver," Kerry said. "This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration," he said.

The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives -- used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility was supposed to be under American military control but has been not secured by US forces since the immediate aftermath of the invasion in March 2003, local media reports said.

Kerry used the incident to repeat his criticism that the Bush administration went to war with Iraq without proper preparations. "The unbelievable blindness, stubbornness, arrogance of this administration to do the basics have now allowed this president to once again fail the test of being the commander in chief."

Bush did not mention the missing explosives during his rally in Greeley, Colorado, but focused his attacks on Kerry's "strategy of pessimism and retreat" in Iraq.

"On Iraq my opponent has a strategy of pessimism and retreat," Bush said. "He has sent the signal that America's overriding goal in Iraq would be to leave, even if the job is not done."

Bush ridiculed Kerry for saying he would win the war in Iraq while calling it a mistake. "The senator calls America's missions in Iraq a mistake, a diversion, a colossal error. And then he says he's the right man to win the war," he said.

As a symbol of the intensity of the race, Kerry pulled out his biggest gun by bringing former President Bill Clinton onto the campaign trail. Only seven weeks after undergoing heart surgery, Clinton joined Kerry in a rally in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Monday.

Source: Xinhua