The Associated Press article, “Kerry blasts Bush’s troops plan” (BDN, Aug. 19), omitted a couple of critical details.

First, most of NATO is supportive of the idea of withdrawing two U.S. divisions and redeploying others to more “forward” locations. After all, West Germany is no longer the front line in the Cold War. Keeping our ground troops in the bases established to secure Western Europe from the Soviet Union is hardly a means of aiding the security of Europe. Germany is concerned about the economic impact, but has said that from a security point the redeployment makes sense.

Second, just a few months ago, Sen. John Kerry was calling for a redeployment of European troops, much like what President Bush has proposed. Kerry’s argument before the Democratic National Convention was that keeping troops deployed as if the Cold War were still in full swing does nothing to aid national or world security.

Now, when Bush proposes a plan nearly identical to what Kerry was saying he would do if he were elected, Kerry suddenly finds his own plan to have massive problems.

William Chapman

Rockport