Bush: Anger over war won’t change U.S. policy

NEW ORLEANS - Calling resistance against terrorism the “defining struggle of the 21st century,” President Bush declared Tuesday that he would not let Americans’ frustration with the war deter him from finishing the job in Iraq.

In an exclusive interview Tuesday night on “NBC Nightly News,” the president said history would vindicate his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and remove President Saddam Hussein from power. But it would consign him to ignominy if he heeded the calls of critics and much of the public to pull U.S. troops home before democracy could be stabilized in Iraq, he said.

“If we lose our nerve and leave the Middle East before the job is finished, the world will be much worse off,” Bush told “Nightly News” anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams.

“I have been saying all the time that we need perseverance and patience and the willingness to defeat a terrorist organization, an ideology of hate, with not only military action but the spread of freedom,” he said.

“I believe this is the calling of our time.”

‘War came to our shores’
The president acknowledged that many Americans were dismayed by the rising number of U.S. service personnel who have been killed in a seemingly ever-more-volatile Iraq. He said that while he did not dismiss that concern lightly, he could not let it temper his resolve.

“I have no doubt — the war came to our shores. Remember that,” he said, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. “We had a foreign policy that basically said, ‘Let’s hope calm works.’ And we were attacked.”

Bush said he could “understand the frustrations of our citizens.” But “if we retreat for the sake of popularity, is that the smart thing to do? My answer is absolutely not,” he said. “It’d be a huge mistake to give the battlefield to these extremists.

“We retreat, they follow us,” he added. “And I see this clearly as day.”

Bush spoke with Williams as he toured a rebuilding site in New Orleans, which he visited Monday and Tuesday as a show of support for the Mississippi gulf region on the anniversary of the devastating landfall of Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,600 people. He admitted that there were “failures” in the federal response after the hurricane and promised the people of Louisiana and Mississippi that he would do all he could to right the wrongs.

Iraq called key to terrorism battle
Bush shot back at critics who accused him of having misled the public into believing Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks: “They weren’t Iraqis, nor did I ever say that Iraq ordered that attack,” he said.

But he said the intense violence in Iraq was a sign of how entrenched the terrorist movement was there, making it all the more important that the United States draw a line in the sand.

“These terrorists have made it clear they want us to leave Iraq prematurely, and why is it?” he asked. “Because they want a safe haven. They’d love to get ahold of oil. They have territorial ambitions. ...

“I personally do not believe Saddam Hussein picked up the phone and said to al-Qaida, ‘Attack America.’ [But] he was on our state-sponsor-of-terrorists list, and he was paying families of suiciders. He also, by the way, had weapons of mass destruction at one time and had the capacity to make them. That’s a dangerous mix.”

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