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Bush Defends Iraq War As Worth It; Democrats Disagree

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 March 2008, 15:00 CDT

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday declared that "the successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable" as he gave a rousing defense of the war on its fifth anniversary before a receptive but not overwhelmingly enthusiastic Pentagon audience.

As the war entered its sixth year, Bush refused to concede any setbacks in the conflict, where nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed and the country has been plunged into sectarian violence. About 158,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq.

The president, who issued the executive order to start "Operation Iraqi Freedom" on March 19, 2003, did acknowledge on Wednesday "an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting ... whether the fight was worth winning ... and whether we can win it."

That debate raged in Washington and across the nation Wednesday.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, in remarks prepared for delivery in Fayetteville, N.C., said that when the 2002 decision to go to war was made, "there was a president for whom ideology overrode pragmatism."

At the same time, the Illinois senator said, "there were too many politicians in Washington who spent too little time reading the intelligence reports and too much time reading public opinion." That was an oblique reference to rival Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who voted to give Bush broad authority to wage war and didn't read a prewar National Intelligence Estimate that undermined the case for war.

Obama, who wasn't in the U.S. Senate at the time, opposed the war. Clinton has said that she'd have voted differently if she knew then what she knows now about the Iraqi threat.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats took the opportunity of the anniversary to rail against the war.

"With the war in Iraq entering its sixth year, Americans are rightly concerned about how much longer our nation must continue to sacrifice our security for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to secure its own future," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Republicans saw it differently.

"After countless obstacles to our success over the past five years, Iraq's fledgling democracy is at long last taking important steps toward the ultimate goal of self-rule," argued House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, echoed that thought, and illustrated how this fall's presidential race will pit candidates with very different views against each other.

"Americans should be proud that they led the way in removing a vicious, predatory dictator and opening the possibility of a free and stable Iraq," he said. "Americans should be proud that once we implemented the surge and new counterinsurgency strategy, a dire situation has been dramatically improved."

McCain's words were nearly identical to Bush's.

"We have watched in admiration as 12 million Iraqis defied the terrorists, went to the polls and chose their leaders in free elections," the president said at the Pentagon.

Underscoring the brutal nature of the enemy, he reminded them: "We have watched in horror as al-Qaida beheaded innocent captives and sent suicide bombers to blow up mosques and markets."

He conceded that just over a year ago, "the fight in Iraq was faltering. Extremist elements were succeeding in their efforts to plunge Iraq into chaos."

Along came a renewed U.S.-led effort, because, Bush said, "my administration understood that America could not retreat in the face of terror. And we knew that if we did not act, the violence that had been consuming Iraq would worsen and spread and could eventually reach genocidal levels."

The 2007 American troop buildup "opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president maintained.

He then looked ahead, saying that the goal is to "consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists' defeat."

He had a warning for critics and skeptics: "War critics can no longer credibly argue that we're losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much. In recent months we have heard exaggerated estimates of the costs of the war."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last summer put the cost of the war at $1 trillion, but other estimates have said the cost will be triple that.

Should the enemy prevail, Bush said, "the violence that is now declining would accelerate, and Iraq could descend into chaos."

If that happened, he said, "the terrorist movement could emerge emboldened, with new recruits, new resources and an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America."

Source: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

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