Defiant Bush says U.S. safer, world is better

/ WASHINGTON — President Bush defiantly defended the Iraq war Wednesday as U.S. troops began a sixth year of combat in the long and costly conflict that has dominated his presidency. Bush conceded the war has been harder and more expensive than anticipated but insisted it has all been necessary to keep Americans safe.

Protesters marked the anniversary of the U.S. invasion with demonstrations near the White House and in other cities, including Seattle.

In the campaign to replace Bush, Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to end the war but squabbled Wednesday over who could do it best. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who traveled to Iraq this week, pledged to continue the war.

Democrats in Congress assailed Bush's failure to get Iraqi leaders to achieve political reconciliation under Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "Americans are rightly concerned about how much longer our nation must continue to sacrifice our security for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to secure its own future," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republicans saw it differently.

"After countless obstacles to our success over the past five years, Iraq's fledgling democracy is at long last taking important steps toward the ultimate goal of self-rule," argued House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Bush, in a speech at the Pentagon, offered some of his boldest assessments of progress and said the war's legacy is absolute: "The world is better, and the United States of America is safer."

A war-weary country isn't nearly so convinced.

In the latest poll by the Pew Research Center, which ran Feb. 20-24, 54 percent said the U.S. had made the wrong decision and 38 percent the right one. However, Americans are more split about how the war is going and when U.S. troops should be pulled home, as violence in Iraq has declined.

Vice President Cheney, in an interview Wednesday with ABC News, said, "You cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public-opinion polls."

Almost 4,000 U.S. military members have died, and more than 29,000 have been wounded. The cost is $500 billion and counting.

"No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure," Bush said. "But those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq."

The U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq, and that number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer. But Bush signaled anew that he will not pull more troops home as long as his commanders worry that doing so will imperil recently improved conditions in Iraq.

"Having come so far, and achieved so much, we're not going to let this happen," Bush said.

Demonstrators converged in the nation's capital, other big cities like Miami and San Francisco, and in smaller towns in Vermont and Ohio to urge an end to the war. Police arrested more than 30 people who blocked the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, D.C., to call attention to the use of taxpayers' dollars and the effect of the war on the economy. Protesters also blocked downtown intersections several times, but the demonstrators numbered in the hundreds rather than the thousands organizers had sought.

Protesters in downtown Seattle used poetry and live music to aim their message at shoppers at Westlake Center on Wednesday evening. About 400 took part in the event, which was sponsored by about a dozen activist groups.

"We're here to tell people about the Iraq war. Five years is too long," said Jane Cutter, an organizer. Rain held down attendance, organizers said.

On Wednesday morning, protesters demonstrated in front of the U.S. Army and Navy recruiting offices at 23rd and Jackson.

Bush's warning

The president, who issued the order to start "Operation Iraqi Freedom" on March 19, 2003, described the costs of trying to end the war too quickly. From his perspective, retreat would lead to chaos in Iraq, embolden al-Qaida to pursue an attack on America and encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

"To allow this to happen would be to ignore the lessons of September the 11th and make it more likely that America would suffer another attack like the one we experienced that day," Bush said.

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The bipartisan Sept. 11 commission found no collaborative relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, who ruled Iraq at the start of the war and was later captured, tried and hanged.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, an insurgent group, has grown into a more potent, dangerous organization since the start of the war. Bush refers to links between that group and the broader al-Qaida network, although experts question that extent of those ties.

Bush praised Sunni tribal leaders for rising up against al-Qaida in Iraq. He said that has led to similar uprisings across the country. Bush put the figure at 90,000 local citizens who are protecting their communities against extremists.

All that, combined with a strategic influx of U.S. troops last year, has "opened the door to a major victory in the broader war on terror," Bush said.

"Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out," Bush said. "Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology."

Bush did not mention that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — a main justification for the war — were never found.

Instead, Bush cited what invading troops found: children's prisons, torture chambers, rape rooms and the mass graves of thousands executed during Saddam's rule. He also jabbed at political critics who he said "still call for retreat."

A $3 trillion war?

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance expert Linda Bilmes have estimated the eventual cost of the war could be as much as $3 trillion when all the expenses are calculated.

"This isn't the war we signed up for," said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Back in 2003, he said, Americans expected a quick, decisive defeat of Saddam and no lingering presence.

Bush decried those who he said have exaggerated the expense. "War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq," he said, "so now they argue the war costs too much."

In Congress, the leaders of the Joint Economic Committee, Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., wrote him and asked for full disclosure.

"The American people deserve a full accounting of what the war has cost in terms of lives, our reputation abroad, and our economy," they wrote.

Additional information from staff reporter Karen Johnson and the Chicago Tribune, Gannett News Service and McClatchy Newspapers