Bloomberg : Bush Says Fighting in Iraq Isn't Making Americans Less Secure

Bush Says Fighting in Iraq Isn't Making Americans Less Secure

By Judy Mathewson | september 30, 2006

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said today that fighting in Iraq isn't making Americans less secure at home.

``This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we are provoking them,'' Bush said in his weekly radio broadcast. ``We do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism.''

This is the seventh week in the past eight that Bush has made the war on terrorism the topic of his radio address. His comments capped a week in which Democrats used the findings of a National Intelligence Estimate to argue that the Iraq invasion has made the U.S. less safe from terrorist attacks.

Bush's address also follows publicity about a new book by Washington journalist Bob Woodward that says the president and his advisers have mishandled the war. ``State of Denial,'' set for publication Oct. 2, says Bush and his advisers responded too slowly to Iraq's growing insurgency.

With congressional elections less than six weeks away Democrats are making criticisms of Republican Bush's conduct of the war a central part of their midterm election campaigns. Republicans respond that defeating extremists in Iraq would be a major blow to terrorists globally. At the same time, they argue that the invasion of Iraq didn't provoke jihadists' anti-American campaign.

Hating America

``Iraq is not the reason the terrorists are at war against us,'' Bush said. ``The terrorists are at war against us because they hate everything American stands for, and because they know we stand in the way of their ambitions to take over the Middle East.''

U.S. troops were not in Iraq when terrorists first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, Bush noted. Nor were they in Iraq when terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000, or when they launched the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, he said.

``The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world,'' Bush said.

Bush also brought up the National Intelligence Estimate, whose key judgments he ordered declassified this week after elements of the report were leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

U.S. Politics

Both major U.S. political parties can point to parts of the April estimate to bolster their cases. The estimate was a consensus of analysts from 16 federal agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency.

Democrats point to excerpts that say anger over the war in Iraq is fueling Muslim radicalism and that the dispersal of terrorist cells around the world poses a greater risk of attacks on the U.S.

``As we've seen day after day, the president and the Congress stubbornly refuse to change course, even when it's clear their failed course is making America less safe,'' Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said yesterday.

Republicans point to a finding in the estimate that U.S. counterterrorism efforts have ``seriously damaged'' al-Qaeda's leadership. Bush noted a finding that ``should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.''

``Withdrawing from Iraq before the enemy is defeated would embolden the terrorists,'' Bush said today. ``It would help them find new recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks on our nation, and it would give the terrorists a new sanctuary in the heart of the Middle East with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Judy Mathewson in Washington at jmathewson@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 30, 2006 10:06 EDT