Bush forcefully defends Iraq war policy
US President George Bush, in the most forceful defence yet of his Iraq war policy, accused critics yesterday of trying to rewrite history and charged that they’re undercutting America’s forces on the front lines.
“The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges,” the president said in his combative Veterans Day speech.
“While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticise my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began,” the president said.
Bush’s combative defence of his policy came at a time of growing doubts and criticism about a war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,050 members of the US military. As casualties have climbed, Bush’s popularity has dropped. His approval rating now is at 37% in the latest AP-Ipsos poll, an all time low point of his presidency.
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who ran against Bush last year, quickly challenged the president’s charges.
“This administration misled a nation into war by cherry-picking intelligence and stretching the truth beyond recognition,” he said.
Bush’s appearance came as his primary justification for the 2003 invasion - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction – has come under fresh attack on Capitol Hill. Democrats have seized on the indictment of a now-resigned senior White House aide in the CIA leak case to shine the spotlight on how the president and other officials used intelligence about Iraq in the weeks and months leading up to the war.
A congressional inquiry into the administration’s handling of pre-war intelligence is pending.
Bush said that foreign intelligence services and Democrats and Republicans alike were convinced at the time that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
“Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and mislead the American people about why we went to war,” Bush said.
He said those critics have made those allegations although they know that a Senate investigation “found no evidence” of political pressure to change the intelligence community’s assessments related to Saddam’s weapons program.
Bush also said they know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing Saddam’s development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
“More than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power,” he said.
“As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them,” the president said.
Bush said the US and its allies are determined to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of extremists and prevent them from gaining control of any country.
