DERRY, N.H. (AP) – Buffeted by criticism from Democratic Sen. John Kerry on Iraq, President Bush accused his Democratic rival Monday of a “pattern of twisting in the wind” and leaving behind a thicket of contradictory positions on the war.

Bush struck back shortly after Kerry delivered a stinging critique in New York of the president’s handling of the war. Kerry said the steps the commander in chief took “were colossal failures of judgment.” The Democrat said Bush had not been honest about the reasons for the war or the cost of the fighting.

“Today my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind,” Bush said at a rally. “He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today.”

“Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power and not in prison,” Bush said. “He’s saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy.

“I couldn’t disagree more, and not so long ago, so did my opponent,” Bush told an audience of supporters. Bush quoted Kerry as saying recently, “Those who believe we are not safer with his capture don’t have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president.”

Bush also charged that Kerry had appropriated his administration’s plan for postwar Iraq.

“Forty-three days before the election, my opponent has now settled on a proposal for what to do next, and it’s exactly what we’re currently doing,” the president said.

Kerry said Monday that Bush must do much more in four major areas: getting help from other nations, providing better training for Iraqi security forces, providing benefits to the Iraqi people and ensuring that democratic elections can be held next year as promised.

Six weeks before the election, Bush was the subject of unusually harsh criticism from members of his own party, some of whom also invoked Vietnam.

“The fact is, a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn’t do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who is co-chairman of Bush’s re-election committee in Nebraska. He spoke on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar, noted that Congress appropriated $18.4 billion a year ago this week for reconstruction. No more than $1 billion has been spent.

“This is the incompetence in the administration,” Lugar, R-Ind., said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Lugar added that the United States needs to train more Iraqi police officers and better coordinate military bombings with Iraqi forces “so that we do not alienate further the Iraqi people by intrusions that are very difficult and are costly in terms of lives.”

Sen. John McCain, another Vietnam War veteran, was asked on “Fox News Sunday” about Bush’s often rosy pronouncements about progress in Iraq.

McCain, R-Ariz., said Bush was not being “as straight as we would want him to be” about the situation.

An adviser to McCain, John Weaver, sought to soften McCain’s remark, saying it should not be considered a broad critique of the war. Weaver said McCain simply “has some concerns about the day-to-day tactics.”

New England was hostile territory to Bush in 2000, with every state voting against him except New Hampshire, and as president, he’s never visited Vermont or Rhode Island. But he moved Monday to build momentum in New Hampshire, where a new poll showed him with a solid lead over Kerry, a New Englander.

Bush was wedging in a day of re-election campaigning in New Hampshire and New York on Monday before sitting down for two days of heavy diplomacy at the annual U.N. meeting in Manhattan.

AP-ES-09-20-04 1540EDT