DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney mocked Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Thursday for pledging to wage a more "sensitive" war against terrorism.

Cheney's speech in the campaign battleground state of Ohio extended a week of Republican attacks on Kerry's security credentials. Kerry's camp said it showed desperation in President Bush's campaign over losing a perceived edge on security issues.

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive," Cheney said.

"Those that threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively, they need to be destroyed," he said.

Cheney accented some form of the word "sensitive" a half-dozen times and drew laughter from the partisan crowd. He said Kerry had a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the world.

Kerry had told a meeting of minority journalists last week that he could do a better job than Bush of cultivating allies in the war on terrorism. "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side," he said.

Campaigning in California on Thursday, Kerry brushed off Cheney's remarks. "It's sad that they can only be negative. They have nothing to say about the future vision of America. I think Americans want a positive vision for the future," he said.

Kerry' campaign went farther and said Cheney had reached a "new low" by launching "desperate misleading attacks."

"This vice president's lack of sensitivity is precisely what led this administration to ignore the advice of the professional military and rush to war (in Iraq)," Kerry spokesman David Wade said. "We can't afford another four years of their failed insensitive foreign policy."

He contrasted the vice president's lack of military service in the 1960s with Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam veteran.

Kerry's campaign also pointed to previous remarks by Bush and Cheney that the United States had to be "sensitive" in its use of power.

SECURITY CREDENTIALS

The Bush campaign this week has trained its sights on Kerry's security credentials and launched a new ad touting Bush's leadership against terrorism.

Polls show Bush is vulnerable on Iraq, where U.S. soldiers die daily fighting an unrelenting insurgency, and the economy. However, he is perceived as stronger than Kerry in fighting terrorism.

Bush on Wednesday said Kerry's pledge to bring large numbers of troops home from Iraq within a year would jeopardize the U.S. mission. A day earlier, he accused Kerry of shifting positions on whether the Iraq war was necessary.

Cheney said Kerry "views the world as if we had never been attacked on Sept. 11."

"He has even said that by using our strength, we are creating terrorists and placing ourselves in greater danger," Cheney said. "But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world we are living in works. Terrorist attacks are not caused by use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness."