WASHINGTON - September 29 - 50 former high-level diplomats and retired military released a statement this week which declares President Bush has made America less safe and calls for his ouster. Most of the former officials served under President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush.

Members of the group are available for interview, including this week in Miami, where the first Presidential debate will take place tomorrow. Several will speak at 8pm tonight at Books and Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables.

Signers of the statement include two former US Ambassadors to Israel, Samuel Lewis and William Harrop. Colonel Mary Ann Wright (US Army, retired), who served as Former Deputy Chief of Mission to Afghanistan, also signed, as well as career diplomat John Brady Kiesling, both of whom resigned in protest over the Iraq war. Dennis Jett, who served as Ambassador to Peru and to Mozambique and who is currently the Dean of the International Center at the University of Florida, also signed.

The group says President Bush should not be trusted to lead America. "The claim that we are safer is the biggest lie of this campaign season," states the group. "Now we are bogged down in a quagmire with no solution in sight."

Excerpts:

"The plain fact is that George W. Bush and his team have succeeded in making our country and our people less safe, and more vulnerable to new terrorist attacks, by an unnecessary war against a threat that did not exist."

“We have lost the hard-won respect and admiration that America enjoyed … Some of these losses are irrecoverable and others will take decades to repair, a process we must begin immediately by electing a new administration.”

“The American people must surely not reelect someone presenting himself as a strong and resolute war leader who is responsible for such a sorry record of judgment and performance.”

"Leadership in the wrong directions is not the leadership we need or want. We can have no trust in such leadership for the next four years. It is definitely time for a change."

Their full statement is available at: www.diplomatsforchange.com/press/kits.shtml

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