AUSTIN, Texas - Al Gore asserted on Saturday that George W. Bush is demonstrating a ''lack of judgment and a complete misunderstanding of history'' by advocating a diminished U.S. peacekeeping role in Europe.
The Bush camp argued that the GOP presidential nominee has been saying the same thing for months: that Europeans should assume all peacekeeping in Europe but that he would not set a deadline for withdrawing American troops now stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Gore's attack came as new polls showed Bush had opened a lead over Gore in the days since the final presidential debate and more than two weeks before Election Day.
In a remarkable offensive aimed at Bush's perceived weakness that he's not ready for the job of commander-in-chief, the Gore campaign made available to reporters both Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander.
Urging the removal of U.S. troops from Bosnia and Kosovo ''sends a dangerous signal,'' Albright said, though the Clinton administration has been moving toward withdrawal. ''We would be undercutting what we have been trying so hard to achieve,'' a free and democratic Europe, she added.
Still, she acknowledged of U.S. troops stationed in the Balkans: ''I don't think they should be there any longer than they have to be.''
In fact, Bush has not advocated bringing home troops from the Balkans now and has not changed his position, his aides insisted. Bush said as recently as the second presidential debate in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Oct. 11 that he would not set a timetable for their withdrawal. ''That would be an abrogation of our agreement with NATO,'' he said.
Gore, at least in debate, told Bush, ''I certainly don't disagree that we ought to get our troops home from places like the Balkans as soon as we can, as soon as the mission is complete.''
But the vice president, in an address Saturday to a union group in Washington, accused Bush of wanting to turn his back on the Balkans.
''Governor Bush would tell NATO that the United States would no longer take part in peacekeeping in the Balkans, in effect turning our back on 50 years of commitment to America's most important security alliance,'' he said. ''I strongly disagree with his view. I believe it demonstrates a lack of judgment and a complete misunderstanding of history to think that America can simply walk away from security challenges on the European continent.''
Later, in an interview with The Associated Press, Gore added, ''It amounts to a reversal of a bipartisan national defense policy that we have followed since the end of World War II.''
Gore's criticism comes as polls taken after Tuesday's debate show Bush opening a 5-to-11 point lead nationally, while several new state polls showed the vice president struggling to hold onto key battleground states.
The two were even in Michigan, a state that has been very close for months, and Bush has erased a Gore lead in Illinois for a dead heat race. Democrats had thought Illinois was safely in their column.
Bush campaign officials said they were perplexed with the Gore assault, noting that Bush's call for phasing out the U.S. peacekeeping presence in Europe has been part of his stump speech for more than a year and was in his acceptance speech at the GOP convention.
Though Bush advocates no U.S. forces in future European peacekeeping missions, he still believes in using U.S. force to intervene to establish peace such as in the Balkans, an operation he backed.
Triggering the Democratic offensive appeared to be comments by Bush national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in a story in Saturday's editions of The New York Times.
In the story, she said Balkans peackeeping should become a European responsibility. She advocated ''a new division of labor.''
Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, said Rice's comments merely summarized Bush's thinking and did not signal any change in position.
Bush seeks to ''rearrange our strategic relationship in Europe so that we would be peacemakers, not long-term peackeepers,'' Rove said.
In addition to setting up the call with Albright, the Gore campaign provided reporters with Clark's cell phone number.
The retired general, who ran the successful 1999 NATO military offensive against Yugoslavia, was reached on the golf course. He said he had not seen Rice's statement nor read The New York Times article.
''I am not a spokesman for the Gore campaign,'' Clark said. ''I have not endorsed either candidate and don't want to get involved in the presidential race.''
Still, he said Europeans now accounted for 75-80 percent of the 65,000-member peackeeping force in the Balkans and he believed continued U.S. participation was required. ''Otherwise, we would lose influence,'' he said.
Albright, in her phone interview, said that even if Bush has not changed his position, the remarks of his adviser were ''something that is being read in Europe.''
Bush, in a satellite address from his Texas ranch to GOP campaign workers in Washington state, asserted that ''we have a solid chance to sweep the West Coast.''
''But this election will be close, and the outcome will be determined precinct by precinct,'' he added.
Bush also assailed Gore's programs as generating ''massive government debt.''
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EDITORS: Associated Press writer Mike Glover, traveling with the Gore campaign, contributed to this report
