Edwards ‘Sticks’ to Anti-War Message

ABC News’ Raelyn Johnson Reports: Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., is standing by his statement that the Bush administration’s political doctrine of the "global war on terror" is nothing more than "a bumper sticker."

"George Bush has made America less safe and less respected in the world," Edwards said in a statement released Thursday, "And the Republican presidential candidates, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, are competing to see who can be the bigger, badder George Bush. Is that really what America wants?"

On Wednesday, Edwards told the gathered crowd at the Council of Foreign Relations, "The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe."

Shortly after these remarks, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, R-N.Y., directly criticized Edwards saying, "If you think that the global war on terror is a slogan for George Bush, you are not facing reality. The terrorists’ war against us started a long time ago."

Edwards responded Thursday: "As I said yesterday, the core of the Bush presidency is a political doctrine they call the Global War on Terror. They use it to justify all the worst abuses of this administration from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to the assault on civil liberties to the war in Iraq."

During the first Democratic presidential debate, Edwards did not raise his hand when candidates were asked whether they believed there was such a thing as a global war on terror.