- WASHINGTON -- President Bush
yesterday demanded that Iran and Syria close porous borders that he claimed
were allowing "foreign fighters" to enter Iraq and carry out
terrorist strikes.
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- On a day which brought a fresh spate of attacks, including
a suicide bombing that killed six, and the news that one of Baghdad's deputy
mayors had been assassinated, President Bush blamed Ba'ath Party loyalists
and foreign operatives for the ongoing violence.
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- "It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some
who believe we are soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken
by suiciders," Mr Bush said. "We are working closely [with Syria
and Iran] to let them know we expect them to enforce borders to stop people
coming across."
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- Earlier, his spokesman, Scott McClellan, said he would
not want to speculate on who was behind the recent attacks, but added:
"We're making it very clear to [Syria and Iran] that they need to
also take action to stop that cross-border infiltration. And they know
what those concerns are and we expect them to act to address those issues."
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- Military and intelligence officials are divided over
who is responsible for the increasingly organised and coordinated attacks,
which on Monday targeted the Baghdad offices of the Red Crossand several
police stations. Thirty-five people were killed and 230 injured in Baghdad's
bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
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- Mr Bush and his senior officials are involved in a determined
PR campaign to try to persuade the American public that progress is being
made in Iraq and that much of the positive news in not getting through
the "media filter".
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- But he is not having it all his way. Last week he suffered
an embarrassing defeat on Capitol Hill when the Senate voted to turn part
of an $87bn request for Iraqi reconstruction into loans rather than grants.
At the international donors conference in Madrid at the weekend much of
the money pledged by other countries was also in the form of loans
-
- Perhaps partly as a result of Mr Bush's visible difficulties
in obtaining international support, recent polls suggested the American
public is losing trust in the President's ability to deal with the situation
in Iraq and prevent the US from being immersed in a quagmire similar to
the situation in Vietnam 25 years ago.
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- Aware of the danger that both this and the escalating
violence in Iraq represent to his re-election fortunes, Mr Bush used his
Rose Garden press conference at the White House yesterday to repeat what
has become a regular theme: that the so-called war on terror launched in
the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September, 2001, now has its focus in
Iraq.
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- "Basically, what they [the attackers] are trying
to do is cause people to run," he said. "They want to kill and
create chaos. That's the nature of a terrorist. That's what terrorists
do. They're not going to intimidate America. The terrorists rely on the
death of innocent people to create the conditions of fear that therefore
will cause people to lose their will. That's their strategy. And it's a
pretty clear strategy to me. It's in our interest that we do our job for
the free world."
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- Mr Bush twice compared the assaults in Iraq to the 2001
attacks on New York and Washington, though he did not claim Saddam Hussein's
regime was involved in the hijackings. He said: "It's the same mentality,
by the way, that attacked us on 11 September 2001. Just destroy innocent
life and watch the great United States and their friends and allies, you
know, crater in the face of hardship. [We] must never forget the lessons
of 11 September.''
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- One of the biggest challenges facing Mr Bush and his
senior military advisers is the development of a realistic exit strategy
from Iraq. While the White House has indicated it would like to reduce
the current US military presence from 130,000 troops to around 50,000 within
12 months, most analysts say that is probably unrealistic given the current
violence.
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- Mr Bush is regularly asked about his comments at the
beginning of May when he announced an end to "major combat operations"
in Iraq. Yesterday he declined to be drawn on when the US may be in a position
to pull out of Iraq. "I think you ought to look at my speech,"
he said. "I said Iraq's a dangerous place. We got hard work to do,
there's still more to be done."
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=458316
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