CHARLESTON, S.C. - Democratic presidential contender Dick Gephardt took the opportunity Friday to criticize President Bush's handling of Iraq, saying the White House must get the help of the world to rebuild the country.

"He must go to the U.N. now. He must go to NATO and get the help we need to solve this problem," the Missouri congressman told about 50 supporters gathered in a Longshoreman's hall near the Charleston docks.

"We cannot leave Iraq," Gephardt said, echoing the theme of a speech he made in California this week. "If we leave Iraq in chaos, which is what it is now, we will have another Afghanistan - it will be another terrorist training camp, and we will pay a dear price down the road."

Gephardt, campaigning about six months ahead of South Carolina's first-in-the-South Democratic primary, said Bush also needs money to rebuild Iraq.

"We have a problem on our hands - a crisis on our hands - because this president will not go to other countries (and) talk with them, listen to them and work with them," Gephardt said.

"I'm not saying the French, the Germans and the Russians are easy to deal with. I know it's hard. But they're our friends," he added. "I'm not saying you have to agree with everything the French and the Russians and the others want to do, but you've got to respect them."

Gephardt, a staunch supporter of organized labor, campaigned in one of the nation's least-unionized states, pushing his health care plan as better for the economy than Bush's tax cuts.

Gephardt proposes requiring employers to insure their workers and offering a tax credit for 60 percent of the costs. He said he would find the money by repealing tax cuts.

"It's time to get this done," he said, as several in the crowd said "Amen!"

Fewer than 5 percent of workers in South Carolina are in unions - only North Carolina, with 3.2 percent, has a smaller percentage of union workers.

"Even if it's a smaller amount of labor, we'll still be going there and talking to them," campaign spokeswoman Kim Molstre said. "It's all about organization and grass-roots politics, and that's what labor is strongest at."

Labor leaders applauded Gephardt for visiting the union hall.

"We know that he totally understands what is important to working families - labor or not labor," said Erin McKee, president of the Greater Charleston Central Labor Council.

Andrew Maute, president of Local 399 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, said Gephardt showed he is not afraid to speak to "segments that are not popular with the public and certainly not popular with the GOP right now."

The union vote "won't play a significant role in the state" because there are so few union members, said Bill Moore, a political scientist at the College of Charleston.

But "the Longshoremen is a predominantly African-American union so it could serve as an entree to the African-American vote," Moore said. Almost 30 percent of South Carolina's population is black, and the majority of the black community votes Democratic.

After speaking at the labor hall, Gephardt visited a health clinic and spoke with health workers at a predominantly black church.