Bush praises Iraqi leaders for resisting threats

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Bush praised Iraqi
politicians on Saturday for standing firm against videotaped
threats by al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq as they work to forge a
unity government.

“The terrorists clearly recognize the threat that the new
unity government poses to their dark plans for Iraq and the
broader Middle East,” Bush said in his weekly radio address,
which was prerecorded. It was his first public comment on Abu
Musab Zarqawi’s message, posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

The message from Zarqawi, who had been written off by some
Iraqi leaders, came two days after an audio tape from al Qaeda
chief Osama bin Laden. In a new video on Saturday, al Qaeda
deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said hundreds of suicide bombers
had “broken America’s back” in three years of war in Iraq.

Bush said “desperate acts of violence” in Iraq, including
the assassination on Thursday of the sister of a newly
appointed vice president, were meant to derail creation of a
cabinet embracing the country’s major ethnic and religious
factions.

“The new leaders of Iraq are showing great courage in the
face of terrorist threats,” Bush said. “And I have told them
they can count on America.”

Bush has struggled to defend his Iraq policy and pull up
approval ratings that have hit new lows amid U.S. public
disenchantment with the war. He again warned Americans: “There
will more tough fighting … and more days of sacrifice.”

But he said a unity government would mark “the beginning of
a new chapter in America’s involvement” in Iraq three years
after a U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

“As Iraqis continue to make progress toward a democracy
that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself, more
of our troops can come home with the honor they have earned,”
Bush said.

He has refused to set a timetable for withdrawing America’s
133,000 troops.

SUPPORT FOR MALIKI

Bush spoke after U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Baghdad to show
support for new Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki.

Maliki, a Shi’ite leader, is forming a broad government
Washington hopes will end sectarian strife that has raised the
specter of civil war, and make it possible to draw down U.S.
forces. He has said he hopes to pick his cabinet by next week.

Citing the challenge posed by a Sunni-led insurgency, Bush
said: “This week the terrorist Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in
Iraq, released a video in which he denounced the new government
and promised further acts of terrorist violence.”

In his rare video appearance, the Jordanian-born Zarqawi
called the United States the “crusader enemy,” branded Baghdad
authorities “apostates” and insisted America’s military power
would not prevail.

Zarqawi, whose group has claimed responsibility for many
major attacks in Iraq as well as beheadings of foreign
hostages, has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Democracy in Iraq would be a “double defeat” for
insurgents, Bush said.

“It will deny the terrorists their immediate aim of turning
Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven
where they can plot … more attacks,” he said. He added it
would also show the Middle East’s future “belongs to freedom.”

Bush said Iraq leaders had agreed the new government must
continue building up security forces and rein in militias.