The US presidential election entered its final hectic week with the candidates locked in bitter dispute about America's security but with neither seemingly able to offer a way out of the worsening crisis in Iraq.
The central plank of the exit strategy suggested by both President George Bush and Senator John Kerry - to train local Iraqis to take over from US troops - received a bloody setback yesterday with the massacre of 50 Iraqi soldiers near the Iranian border.
In speeches in Florida and New Mexico Mr Bush stressed that on the war on terror - which voters say is the main issue in the election - the choice in the election was clear.
"You cannot lead our nation to decisive victory on which the security of every American family depends if you do not see the true dangers of the post-September 11th era," he said.
The only thing the president wanted to talk about is "terror, the war on terror, national security," said Senator Kerry, accusing Mr Bush of going around the country trying to scare people.
"If that's the debate we want to have, I'm prepared to have that debate because I can wage a better war on terror than George Bush has," he said.
The latest polls show that with eight days of campaigning left the election is a statistical dead heat. In the ABC News tracking poll 49 per cent of likely voters favoured Mr Bush and 48 per cent Mr Kerry. This shows a shift towards Mr Kerry in the last two days as on Friday the same poll had Mr Bush ahead by 50-46 per cent.
A Newsweek poll shows the race tied at 46 per cent among registered voters with Mr Bush leading Mr Kerry by 48 per cent to 46 per cent among likely voters and a Time poll has Mr Bush leading among registered voters 50 to 43 per cent, and among likely voters 51 per cent to 46 per cent. Both polls were taken last week.
Mr Bush criss-crossed Florida by marine helicopter on Saturday, mocking his opponent at huge gatherings of voters for taking different positions on Iraq.
"Senator Kerry seems to have forgotten all that as his position has evolved during the course of the campaign," Mr Bush said. "You might call it election amnesia." Mr Kerry focused on western states, telling voters in Colorado to choose an optimistic outlook and "vote your hopes, not the fears that George Bush wants you to feel". The Democratic candidate picked up several more newspaper endorsements yesterday, including the Washington Post, which said he was the better bet to achieve his goals "both to fight in Iraq and reach out to allies, to hunt down terrorists and to engage without arrogance the Islamic world".
In Iraq yesterday nearly 50 unarmed Iraqi army recruits were killed in one of the bloodiest attacks on the country's fledgling security forces. Guerrillas also killed a US diplomat.