E alla fine Kerry ha dovuto dare una risposta. Ecco cosa si legge sul New York Times di oggi:

RAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz., Aug. 9 - Senator John Kerry said Monday that he would have voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq even if he had known all he does now about the apparent dearth of unconventional weapons or a close connection to Al Qaeda.
"I believe it's the right authority for a president to have," said Mr. Kerry, who has faced criticism throughout his presidential campaign for that October 2002 vote.But Mr. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, extended his attack on President Bush's prosecution of the war, saying he had not used the Congressional authority effectively.
"My question to President Bush is, Why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace?" Mr. Kerry told reporters here after responding to Mr. Bush's request last week for a yes-or-no answer on how he would vote today on the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq.
"Why did he rush to war on faulty intelligence and not do the hard work necessary to give America the truth?" he said. "Why did he mislead America about how he would go to war? Why has he not brought other countries to the table in order to support American troops in the way that we deserve it and relieve a pressure from the American people?"
Standing at an elevation of 7,200 feet on the edge of the canyon, Mr. Kerry also set a goal of reducing the number of troops in Iraq by next summer, though both he and his advisers rushed to say that deployment would depend on diplomatic progress and democratic elections in Iraq, among other things.
"I believe if you do the kind of alliance-building that is available to us that it is appropriate to have a goal of reducing our troops over that period of time," he said. "Obviously, we have to see how events unfold. The measurement has to be, as I've said all along, the stability of Iraq, the ability to have the elections, and the training and transformation of the Iraqi security force itself."
At the same time, Mr. Kerry said, if commanders on the ground ask for a troop increase, "you'd have to respond to what the commanders asked for."
The comments on troops grew out of a radio interview last week in which Mr. Kerry said, "I believe that within a year from now, we could significantly reduce American forces in Iraq, and that's my plan."
His senior foreign policy adviser, James P. Rubin, told reporters, "Senator Kerry made very clear he was talking about goals," pointing out that Tommy Franks, the recently retired general who led the Iraq invasion, said Sunday that troop reduction might soon be possible.
To back up his contention that he could reduce the number of American troops by persuading other countries to deploy forces to Iraq, Mr. Kerry suggested that two of his Democratic Senate colleagues, Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Carl Levin of Michigan, had received assurances while traveling abroad that a change in administration would change allies' attitudes.
"Right now, this administration is scrambling to try to get Muslim forces on the ground; the Saudis are trying to scramble to help assist to do that," he said. "All of this should have happened in the beginning, all of these things should have been achieved beforehand. American presidents should not send American forces into war without a plan to win the peace."
Mr. Kerry has said that he - along with other members of Congress and the American public - was misled by the Bush administration about its rationale for going to war in Iraq, but Monday's statement was his most definitive yet that he would have voted to authorize the use of force even if provided a fuller picture.
Over the past year, he has been bedeviled by the Iraq war, first attacked by antiwar Democrats in the primaries for his vote in favor of the resolution, more recently pilloried by Mr. Bush and his allies for voting against $87 billion that went largely to finance the war.

Alcuni punti mi sembrano degni di nota.
1) Il NYTimes definisce Kerry "bedeviled by the Iraqi war". E' un'affermazione molto forte, che dà credito alle critiche secondo cui Kerry è un politico inaffidabile.
2) Alla convention Kerry aveva accusato il Preisdente di "misleading us into war". Era un'accusa molto forte e di grande impatto. Oggi quell'accusa di fatto viene a mancare. Kerry sposta il tiro sul modo in cui la guerra è stata condotta, sulla distruzione delle alleanze con l'Europa (presentata come un costo per il contribuente americano e per i soldati in guerra). L'accusa si trasforma da "misleading America into war" a "misleading America about how he would go to war". Insomma, Bush ha fatto la scelta giusta ma poi non ha saputo applicarla in modo efficace.
3) Si sposta insomma il problema dal piano dell'affidabilità a quello della competenza. E' sicuramente un'accusa meno efficace, ma evidentemente Kerry e i suoi consiglieri devono avere capito (dati alla mano, probabilmente) di non potere usare la decisione di Bush di andare in guerra contro l'Iraq come un'arma contro il Presidente, a causa del voto di Kerry in Senato.
4) E' una decisione saggia, perché i fatti sono ostinati e il voto di Kerry è un fatto. Ma perché prenderla adesso, e non alla convention? Perché esporsi alle critiche di chi dice che Kerry è inaffidabile? Come ho già scritto, l'affidabilità si misura soprattutto quando si attacca l'avversario: chi non è affidabile è meno legittimato ad attaccare. Siccome queste elezioni saranno un referendum su Bush, Kerry deve attaccare. Ma perché attaccare a vanvera? Il riposizionamento di Kerry sulla guerra mi sembra un ultimo tentativo di non "perdere" la issue che sarà cruciale nelle sorti di questa campagna elettorale: la guerra in Iraq e la capacità dei candidati di essere "Commander in Chief".