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By Richard W.
Stevenson and Douglas Jehl
New
York Times, April 14, 2004
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Mr. Bush strongly reiterated his commitment to transferring
sovereignty in
Seeking to tamp down concern that
"Now is the time and
Appearing somber but relaxed as he confronted what he called tough weeks — and what his advisers acknowledge has been one of the most trying periods of his presidency — Mr. Bush cast the conflict in Iraq as an integral part of the broader fight against terrorism and suggested that any failure to follow through would be unthinkable and have dire consequences for Americans.
"A free Iraq will confirm to a watching world that America's word, once given, can be relied upon even in the toughest times," Mr. Bush said in a 17-minute statement that opened what was only his third news conference in prime time, the last being on the eve of the war.
"Above all, the defeat of violence and terror in
In what was apparently a response to critics who have
called on him to give the United Nations a greater role, particularly his
Democratic rival in the presidential race, Senator
John Kerry, Mr. Bush said he would like another U.N. resolution, to make it
easier for other countries to help in
He also cited the presence in
In a statement, Mr. Kerry criticized Mr. Bush for not
giving the United Nations a bigger role and for not offering a specific plan
for stabilizing
Speaking only hours after the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks held hearings on failures by the Justice Department and the F.B.I., Mr. Bush was asked repeatedly whether he felt personally responsible for the terrorist attacks or owed the nation an apology.
Mr. Bush said: "I feel incredibly grieved when I meet with family members, and I do quite frequently. I grieve for, you know, the incredible loss of life that they feel, the emptiness they feel. There are some things I wish we'd have done when I look back. I mean, hindsight's easy."
But Mr. Bush stopped short of offering an apology for the fact that the United States government failed to prevent the attacks, something the former counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke did in testimony before the 9/11 commission.
In response to a question, Mr. Bush offered a nod to the
political difficulty he faces after two weeks in which more than 80 American
service men and women in
"Nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens," the president said. "I don't. It's a tough time for the American people to see that. It's gut-wrenching."
Mr. Bush acknowledged that the surge in violence in Iraq was coming from an array of disparate forces that have never before acted in concert, including remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, Shiite radicals and foreign terrorists.
"They want to run us out of
Mr. Bush's challenge on Tuesday night was to halt the erosion in what his advisers consider his most precious asset — his standing as a decisive leader in confronting threats to the United States — and to reassure the electorate that he can bring order to an increasingly chaotic and violent situation in Iraq.
In just the last two weeks, 86
And in the same period, the Sept. 11 commission has held a series of hearings that have brought out the accusations of Mr. Clarke that the Bush administration paid little heed to the warnings of a terrorist attack through the summer of 2001.
The White House has scrambled for weeks to cope with the
renewed insurgency in
The president has come under growing pressure from within
his own party to be more aggressive in asserting that the
That he ultimately chose to address the nation and take
questions in prime time, in the formal setting of the East Room, underscored
the sense that it is not just
Only twice before has Mr. Bush called a full-scale news conference in prime time — the first a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the second last year, just before the invasion of Iraq.
This time the nation is far more polarized, and his path, in Iraq and politically, was less clear. Certainly, there was no hint of the triumphalism of 50 weeks ago, when Mr. Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln off San Diego before a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished."
Mr. Bush announced no major new initiatives for dealing with Iraq as the deadline for the transfer of sovereignty approaches, and he sketched out relatively limited roles for the United Nations and NATO in overseeing the political transformation in Iraq and the continued American military presence after the handover of sovereignty. He said he would dispatch Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, to consult with Arab nations about helping in Iraq.
The mood in the East Room lacked the high tension of Mr. Bush's last prime-time news conference, in March 2003, on the eve of the invasion. Tuesday night's news conference had a more war-weary feeling. Mr. Bush appeared tired at times but also more relaxed, and he seemed determined to respond evenly to even the most provocative questions. He displayed none of the cockiness he sometimes does at less formal news conferences. But he also did not directly answer many questions, and his responses sometimes wandered.
In response to questions about his administration's preparedness for a terrorist attack, he said he was "sick when I think about the death that took place on that day." But, he said, "the person responsible for the attacks was Osama bin Laden."
Asked if he ever admitted mistakes or would acknowledge errors in judgment, Mr. Bush focused on how different the country was before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"This country wasn't on a war footing, and yet we're at war," he said. "And that's just a reality."
Most of the country, he said, "never felt that we'd be vulnerable to an attack such as the one that Osama bin Laden unleashed on us." Apparently referring to the Clinton administration, he said, "I don't think the prior government could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."
He said he could not immediately answer a question on what he might have done differently in going to war in Iraq. He said he still thought that illicit weapons might be found in Iraq. "It will all settle out," he said.
"I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes; I'm confident I have," he said, but added, "Maybe I'm not quick, as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."
Among the questions Mr. Bush fielded on Iraq were those that focused on the failure of American investigators to find the "weapons of mass destruction" there that the administration cited as a principal reason for going to war. "Of course I want to know why we haven't found a weapon yet," he said.
Mr. Bush said the United States had no desire to be an imperial power and would not engage in an indefinite occupation of Iraq.
"Were the coalition to step back from the June 30 pledge, many Iraqis would question our intentions and feel their hopes betrayed, and those in Iraq who trade in hatred and conspiracy theories would find a larger audience and gain the stronger hand," he said.
Asked what kind of Iraqi government the United States hoped to turn power over to on June 30, Mr. Bush offered no specifics. "You'll find that out soon," he said, in an indication of the difficulties in finding an interim government acceptable to Iraq's major political and sectarian factions.
Mr. Bush said he was awaiting a report by Mr. Brahimi, the envoy whom the administration is increasingly relying on to put a non-American stamp on the choice of a broader interim government to replace the Iraqi governing council.
At the end of the hourlong news conference, Mr. Bush acknowledged that his remarks represented "a pretty somber assessment."
"It was a tough, tough period," he said, in an allusion to the high casualties of recent weeks. "But we are making progress."
Mr. Bush responded only indirectly to a question about whether his administration had been overly optimistic about how American troops would be received by the Iraqi people. He defended the American invasion as appropriate and necessary.
Mr. Hussein was "a threat to the region, he was a
threat to the
In response to questions, Mr. Bush repeated his
longstanding position that American troops would stay in
He said he was ready to keep American forces in