NYT : Bush Evokes Revolutionary War to Bolster the U.S. Cause in Iraq

Bush Evokes Revolutionary War to Bolster the U.S. Cause in Iraq

By JIM RUTENBERG | Published: July 5, 2007

MARTINSBURG, W.Va., July 4 — Facing renewed wrangling with Democrats — and possibly some Republicans — over continuing the Iraq war, President Bush on Wednesday took Independence Day as an opportunity to hark back to another bloody war with no apparent end in sight.

Reading aloud from an article about the first Fourth of July celebration, in Philadelphia in 1777, and its “grand exhibition of fireworks,” Mr. Bush told the audience of Air National Guard members and their families at the base here, “Our first Independence Day celebration took place in a midst of a war — a bloody and difficult struggle that would not end for six more years before America finally secured her freedom.”

Addressing National Guard members with the 167th Airlift Wing who were gathered in a cavernous airplane hangar here, he said, “Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war — pledging your lives and honor to defend our freedom and way of life.”

After nearly six years of war, beginning with the war in Afghanistan, such Fourth of July speeches have become routine for Mr. Bush. On Independence Day last year, Mr. Bush went to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, to argue against Democratic calls to withdraw from Iraq.

Then, with Congress in Republican hands and no real attempts by it to force a withdrawal legislatively, his argument seemed tailored for that year’s Congressional elections above anything else. Now, with Congress under the control of Democrats, many of whom won with promises to force an end to the war, the threat to his plans from Congress is real.

Democratic leaders have said they will use votes on the defense authorization bill after the July 4 recess to push new proposals calling for withdrawal timetables and possibly even a reassessment of the authorization to use force in Iraq.

A Congressionally mandated preliminary progress report on the results of the troop increase that Mr. Bush ordered in Iraq is due on July 15 and its results — which are expected to be mixed — could add to the pressure to end the war or change strategies. It comes as a growing number of moderate Republicans, including Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, voice concerns.

Mr. Bush said if the United States were to leave Iraq now, Al Qaeda “would be able to establish their safe haven from which to do two things: to further spread their ideology and to plan and plot attacks against the United States.”

Victory, he said, “will require more patience, more courage, and more sacrifice.”

Several Democrats have made the case that the president’s strategy is failing and that a full or partial withdrawal would press the Iraqis to settle their problems on their own. The lawmakers are facing dissatisfaction in polls that party strategists attribute to disquiet among Democratic voters with the party’s failure to force change in the president’s Iraq strategy.

Mr. Bush spent 20 minutes in the hangar, which dwarfed the crowd, shaking hands and talking with a long line of Guard members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. He then lifted off for what his spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said would be a Fourth of July celebration at the White House that would double as a celebration of his 61st birthday this Friday.

Mr. Stanzel said Mr. Bush’s daughters and parents and his wife, Laura, would attend.

As Mr. Bush said of Mrs. Bush, “Laura sends her love — she would be with me, but I told her to fire up the grill.”