The exchange came amid an increasingly vitriolic campaign as the presidential race charges into its final weeks and as Kerry turns up his criticism of the Bush administration.
Hatch, speaking during an interview on the Fox News Channel, said terrorists could be expected to do all they can in the coming months to topple Bush and get Kerry elected.
“We just have to hold firm, stand strong and quit bad-mouthing what's going on over there so that our young men and women who are serving don't lose their faith and heart,” Hatch said.
When asked if he believes that Kerry's challenge of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq amounted to not supporting soldiers, Hatch responded: “That's exactly what's happening here.
“If you look at what they're saying on the other side of this equation and this presidential race, they're consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there.”
The Democratic National Committee, in response, sent out a statement from Nita Martin, a Pennsylvania mother and registered Republican whose two sons have served in Iraq.
Martin said it was the Bush administration who has failed to support the troops.
“Before one of my sons left, he went online to buy himself a helmet that would better protect him than the one which was issued to him by the U.S. military,” she said. “If anybody doesn't support the troops it's George W. Bush. He sent my sons to war with no plan. They were ill-prepared and the result is more and more casualties every day.”
Martin said one of her sons is a reservist who was in the first wave into Iraq. The other is a career Marine who was deployed more than a year after Bush spoke on the USS Lincoln in front of a banner that read “Mission Accomplished.”
Hatch's spokesman declined to respond to Martin's criticism.
On Tuesday, Kerry said Bush is in denial about the situation on the ground in Iraq and lacks the credibility to lead in the world. Monday, Kerry laid out what he believes should be done to bring a resolution in Iraq.
Bush said Tuesday that Kerry “has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.”
