Bush vows to continue war against terrorism
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—President George W. Bush on Thursday rejected critics of the Iraq war who demand a U.S. pullout and cast the conflict as necessary to prevent Islamic militants from gaining a foothold for a sweeping empire. “We will never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory,” Bush said in a speech on Washington’s war on terrorism. Bush used new and more specific language in characterizing the opponents as part of an Islamic radical movement “with a clear and coherent ideology” and territorial ambitions, rather than dismissing them as the terrorist “evildoers” of his early speeches on the issue.
It was part of a White House effort to rebuild waning American support for the Iraq war amid an upsurge of violence ahead of a planned October 15 referendum on an Iraqi constitution. Bush firmly rejected those who demand a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, saying to pull out would leave the country’s fledgling government exposed to supporters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the group’s leader in Iraq, Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
“Having removed a dictator and aided free peoples, we will not stand by as a new set of killers dedicated to the destruction of our own country seizes control of Iraq by violence,” he said. Bush sought to put the Iraq war in a global context, calling it a central front in the war on terrorism, and accusing al Qaeda militants and their supporters of seeking to overthrow moderate Arab governments and to attack U.S. targets. He said the United States and its allies had disrupted 10 serious al Qaeda plots since the September 11, 2001, attacks, three inside the United States. Bush dwelt for a good part of his speech on the aspirations of militants as he tried a new approach to convincing Americans of the seriousness of the war on terrorism. “The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that expands from Spain to Indonesia,” Bush said. Citing recent attacks in London, Sharm el-Sheikh and Bali, Bush said while the bombings appeared random, they serve a clear ideology, “a set of beliefs that are evil but not insane,” and gave a new name for the ideology: Islamo-fascism. A CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll last month said only 32 percent of Americans approved of Bush’s handling of the war, which he launched in 2003 citing the threat of weapons of mass destruction possessed by Saddam Hussein’s government.
“I would like to thank you for the work done, for the mission accomplished and rescue of the Russian seamen,” Putin said at the ceremony, held inside Downing Street’s grand Pillared Room. “The work was done quickly, at a good professional level and most importantly it succeeded”.