JOHN KERRY attempted yesterday to relaunch his flagging campaign for the White House with a new and aggressively worded attack on President Bush’s domestic policies, but immediately ran into fresh trouble over his stance on Iraq.

Heeding the advice of Bill Clinton and a host of the former President’s advisers, the Democrat challenger tried to focus on the economy, job losses and healthcare, using Mr Bush’s middle initial for his latest campaign slogan.

“W stands for wrong — wrong choices, wrong judgment, wrong priorities, wrong direction for our country,” Mr Kerry declared at rallies in the battleground states of West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, seeking to contrast himself more clearly with Mr Bush and reinvigorate a campaign now trailing in the polls.

But it was the war in Iraq, an issue that has bedevilled his campaign all year, that dominated the agenda and gave Mr Bush new ammunition with which to attack him.

Asked about Iraq, Mr Kerry declared it to be “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time”, and Mr Bush’s “most catastrophic” wrong choice. Although he said recently that he hoped to bring a “significant number” of US troops home from Iraq in his first term as President, Mr Kerry went much farther. “My goal would be to bring them home in my first term, and I believe that can be done,” he said. Mr Kerry has repeatedly criticised Mr Bush’s handling of the war but has struggled to explain why he voted to give Mr Bush the authority to invade Iraq before voting against an $87 billion (£49 billion) request to fund troops and reconstruction costs.

Last month he perplexed many Democrats when he said that he would still have voted to authorise Mr Bush to invade even had he known that no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

That statement allowed Mr Bush to accuse Mr Kerry in stump speeches, and at last week’s Republican convention, of changing his position on Iraq. Mr Bush has also said that setting a timetable for troop withdrawal will only encourage the insurgents. When Mr Kerry renewed his attacks on the war yesterday, Mr Bush had a line hastily inserted into a campaign speech. “After saying he would have voted for the war, even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position,” Mr Bush declared at a rally in Missouri.

“No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, we were right to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It was right for America then and it’s right for America now.”

After weeks of relentless attacks on his credibility and character by fellow Vietnam veterans, and during last week’s Republican convention in New York, Mr Kerry begins the final stretch of the race suddenly trailing a President with new energy and momentum. Although both sides still believe the vote on November 2 will be close, Mr Bush is in a better position coming out of the convention season than his aides privately predicted.

That has forced Mr Kerry to bring in a string of Mr Clinton’s former advisers. They have recrafted a more aggressive stump speech that seeks to attack Mr Bush on domestic issues in “sharper, clearer” terms, according to one aide.

The new message comes with the launch of a TV advertising campaign in 20 swing states, attacking Mr Bush at a time when the President, after months of successfully savaging Mr Kerry, is turning positive. Mr Bush has begun a new campaign setting out his stall for a second term.

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