Quotes of the Day

The Claim:
I have a plan to call an international conference with all the allies to discuss Iraq; something this administration has not yet done.

Reality Check:
The administration has, in fact, organized just such a conference, in consultation with Iraqi and other Arab allies. It will be held in Cairo late in November, with the foreign ministers of the G8 countries (i.e. including antiwar countries such as France, Germany and Russia), China, the countries of the Arab League, Turkey and Iran invited to attend. If it goes ahead, it will mark the most significant attempt to forge a political consensus on Iraq since the war.

The Claim:
Kerry claimed he has the "credibility" to bring allies back to the table on Iraq.

Reality Check:
It wasn't the President's credibility that kept most of the international community out of Iraq; it was, and is, the policies pursued by the U.S. in Iraq. But Kerry is broadly committed to the same policies. And if, as he says, other countries will participate because they have a stake in the outcome, then presumably they would do so no matter who was President of the United States.

	ANALYSIS A Debate in Spite of Itself James Poniewozik: Bush v. Kerry, Round One came off as spirited and substantial despite rules designed to tone it down The Iraq Debate We Deserved Matt Cooper: Both Bush and Kerry scored points in a smart, rousing debate Reality Check Tony Karon takes a look at the facts behind the candidates' claims: Bush | Kerry GRAPHICS Past Debates: Turning Points The moments that won and lost the contests between presidential candidates POLL Who won the first presidential debate? George W. Bush John Kerry Draw CNN.com America Votes 2004 Complete coverage of the debates and the presidential election

Reality Check:
Kerry's plan — convening a regional summit to win greater outside support, speeding up the training of Iraqi forces, focusing reconstruction aid on high-impact projects that create jobs and taking steps to ensure that elections are held next year — is pretty much a checklist of recent initiatives adopted by the Bush Administration.

The Claim:
To win in Iraq, you can't back off in Fallujah and other places. You have to show the terrorists we're serious.

Reality Check:
The decision to back off in Fallujah and other places was taken only when those U.S. military operations had so alienated uncommitted Iraqis that continuing the assault threatened to fatally undermine America's prospects for achieving its objectives in Iraq. It was the Iraqi leaders cooperating with the U.S. that actually urged it to curb its actions in Fallujah and Najaf.

The Claim:
I will never take my eyes off the goal in the war on terror, which is Osama bin Laden.

Reality Check:
Although he remains extremely important as a symbol, the evolution of al-Qaeda since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 has considerably diminished bin Laden's centrality to the operations of the increasingly diffuse networks he has inspired. The nature of the movement he has spawned demands a generational commitment to Jihad, and assumes the inevitability of his "martyrdom." The war will continue long after bin Laden is dust.

The Claim:
I have a plan for reaching out to the Muslim world and isolating the fundamentalists rather than allowing them to isolate us.

Reality Check:
Kerry has spoken of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in an aggressive PR strategy to change the Arab world's perception of the U.S. and of Israel. In reality, as the 9/11 commission concluded, the depth of U.S. support for Israel (on which there is no difference between Bush and Kerry) will be the prism through which much of the Muslim world perceives U.S. policy — at least as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to rage. Again, it's not a question of PR or image, but of policy, and Kerry has thus far shown no inclination to change Washington's course in relation to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Claim:
North Korea has made nuclear weapons. I'll change that.

Reality Check:
If, in fact, North Korea is to be taken at its word that it has created nuclear weapons, the Senator offered no strategy that would result in Pyongyang disarming. If it's already a reality, it's quite likely an intractable one for the foreseeable future. After all, North Korea will have observed India and Pakistan and learned that once countries have nuclear capability, the international community has little option but to deal with them as nuclear powers.

The Claim:
Before the Bush Administration came to power, North Korea's nuclear program was under scrutiny and its fuel rods were permanently visible to TV monitors. The agreement broke down because the Bush Administration refused to continue the Clinton policy, and as a result North Korea has developed nuclear weapons.

Reality Check:
While the Yongbon facility was under scrutiny and the fuel rods were sealed, North Korea has since admitted to running a secret parallel uranium-enrichment program to create weapons-grade fissile material in the years following the agreement reached with the Clinton administration, in violation of that agreement.

The Claim:
The U.S. is suffering 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq.

Reality Check:
The U.S. may be recording upward of 90 percent of coalition casualties, but the overwhelming majority of the people killed in Iraq over the past 18 months have been Iraqis.

The Claim:
"We've got weapons of mass destruction coming across the border every day [in Iraq] and blowing people up."

Reality Check:
Suicide bombers are not weapons of mass destruction.

• Tony Karon
• Parsing the Senator's statements in Thursday's debate