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Bush Lauds Iraqis, Heads to South Asia

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 February 2006, 21:00 CST

By JENNIFER LOVEN

WASHINGTON - President Bush praised Iraqis' "defiance of the terrorists and the killers" before embarking Tuesday on a ties-strengthening visit to South Asia - the presumed hiding place of Osama bin Laden and a part of the world where the war on terror is often close at hand.

With a wave but no words, Bush left for India, Pakistan and, possibly, Afghanistan.

"I can go to Pakistan as a friend of India's and be able to have a good dialogue. And go to India, as a friend of Pakistan's and be able to have a good dialogue," Bush told ABC News on Tuesday. "The good news is that it's less delicate than ever before."

Bush exited Washington for five days at a time of turmoil for his presidency.

A new CBS poll shows his approval rating dropped to 34 percent from 42 percent in January.

Bush has been confronted with a surge in violence in Iraq that could derail U.S. hopes of significant troop withdrawals this year and with a bipartisan rebellion in Congress over his administration's approval of a Dubai-owned company to manage six major U.S. ports.

Those subjects - both of which could threaten Bush's reputation on national security - dominated his pre-trip Oval Office appearance alongside a staunch Iraq ally, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

With the death toll in Iraq nearing 400 from retaliatory attacks that erupted after last Wednesday's bombing of the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra and continued Tuesday, Bush issued a reminder about "the seriousness of the moment."

"The people of Iraq and their leaders must make a choice," Bush said. "The choice is chaos or unity, the choice is a free society, or a society dictated by evil people who would kill innocents. ... Since last December, 11 million people, in defiance of the terrorists and the killers, went to the polls and said, `We want to be free.'"

Later, Bush said conversations with Iraqi leaders representing Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions helped reassure him that no larger role for the U.S. military is required and that the situation will not turn into all-out civil war. "They understand that they're going to choose unification, and we're going to help them to do so," he said in the interview with ABC's Elizabeth Vargas.

Bush also said he still supports allowing Dubai-owned DP World to take over some U.S. port operations from a British company, even though a new, more intensive examination of the security risks has yet to begin.

He suggested there is no reason to think the second review of the deal will produce any different outcome than the first. As he spoke, Republicans continued to join Democrats in criticizing the deal as potentially opening the country to terrorist dangers and the administration's initial approval as flawed.

"My position hasn't changed," the president countered.

Bush rejected a congressional report's characterization of the U.S. response to Katrina as "woefully unprepared" and criticism of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Bush said, "I don't think" Chertoff would offer to resign. "He's doing a fine job," the president told ABC.

The war on terror will be a top agenda item as Bush makes a rare - and short - presidential journey to South Asia.

Bush was being greeted in India, where he visits New Delhi and Hyderabad, by business and government leaders eager to boost already growing trade and military ties between two nations building a strategic partnership after years of frosty Cold War-era relations.

But in central India on Tuesday, Maoist militants attacked a group of trucks jammed with passengers, killing 23 people. Though the incident took place hundreds of miles from New Delhi, it underscored the Indian government's worries that attacks would be timed to coincide with Bush's visit.

And not all of India's citizens welcome a visit from the president of a nation many see as the world's bully. Dozens of planned protests began Tuesday. Of the hundreds of Muslim demonstrators, a few waved signs saying "Devil Bush Go Back," while communist supporters burned effigies of the American president.

The most closely watched aspect of Bush's trip is nuclear negotiations with India.

Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agreement in July that would provide India with nuclear fuel. But the pact, which faces some political opposition in both countries, hinges on the still-uncompleted talks to determine how to separate India's tightly entwined civilian and military nuclear facilities.

"The one thing that is absolutely necessary is that any agreement would assure that once India has decided to put a reactor under safeguard that it remain permanently under safeguard," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on Air Force One on the way to India.

The provision she cited would prevent India from transferring a reactor from civilian to military status and thus exempting it from international inspections.

The president's travel to Pakistan also provides a chance to cement ties with a key ally. Bush has repeatedly praised President Pervez Musharraf's war-on-terror cooperation but, with bin Laden believed to be hunkered down along the Afghan-Pakistani border, some think he could do more.

"He'll have to make a choice. That's the thing about this world. You know, sometimes it's not easy," the president told ABC. "I'll be talking to President Musharraf about the need to work together to find these killers."

Bush's stay in Islamabad, expected to be blanketed with extraordinary security, is also aimed at boosting the U.S. image among Muslims. He participates in a cricket event and highlights the American contributions after the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake in Pakistan.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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