Bush backtracks, says terror war can be won

By Mike Allen
The Washington Post

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"Make no mistake about it: We are winning and we will win," Bush told the annual convention of the American Legion as he continued his journey toward the Republican National Convention for his acceptance speech tomorrow night.

"We will win by staying on the offensive," he said. "We will win by spreading liberty. We believe that liberty can transform nations from tyranny into peaceful nations."

In tone and substance, the remarks differed sharply from the more contemplative words he had offered on NBC's "Today" show Monday. Asked about "this war on terror" during that interview, Bush said: "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world. Let's put it that way."

The statement Monday was at odds with his own statements about having a plan to defeat terrorism, and ran counter to his campaign's strategy of portraying the president as optimistic and resolute.

It drew an immediate attack from Democrats, who have been on the defensive in recent weeks over attacks on presidential nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War record and position on Iraq.

Kerry is to address the American Legion today, and a Kerry campaign official told reporters before Bush's comments yesterday that Kerry will hold a rally in Tennessee to "talk about the war on terror, and ask why the president thinks we can't win it."

Bush had told NBC's Matt Lauer that he has a two-pronged strategy for coping with terrorists. "On the one hand is to find them before they hurt us. And that's necessary," he said. "The long-term strategy is to spread freedom and liberty. ... I believe that democracy can take hold in parts of the world that are now nondemocratic, and I think it's necessary in order to defeat the ideologies of hate."

But advisers determined that in the superheated homestretch of the campaign, the answer could not stand. Bush's campaign has kept Kerry on the defensive for many months by using his own words to mock him in ads and during presidential events.

Several strategists close to Kerry asserted that despite Bush's revision, the quote would become a standard talking point for Democrats, who contend the president has twisted the senator's words repeatedly.

After speaking in Nashville, Bush flew to Alleman, Iowa, to speak at a farm-equipment show and told conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in a telephone interview from there that he "should have made my point more clear."

"I probably needed to be a little more articulate," Bush told Limbaugh. "What I meant was that this is not a conventional war. It is a different kind of war. We're fighting people who have got a dark ideology who use terrorists, terrorism, as a tool. They're trying to shake our conscience. And in a conventional war, there would be a peace treaty or there would be a moment where somebody would sit on the side and say, 'We quit.' That's not the kind of war we're in, and that's what I was saying."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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