Exactly one year after ordering the first military strikes against Iraq, President Bush called Friday for "bolder action" against terrorism and cited the Madrid bombings last week as a reason for U.S. allies to remain united.
"Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations," he told guests invited for his anniversary speech in the East Room of the White House. Ambassadors and diplomats from 84 countries joined members of the military and others in the audience.
It is “the duty of every government to fight and destroy this threat to our people,” Bush added.
"Each attack must be answered not only with sorrow," he said, "but with greater determination, deeper resolve and bolder action against the killers.”
The president's new defense of his actions comes as American voters are split over his decision to go to war and some international allies grow weary of continued postwar violence in Iraq.
Mindful of Madrid
Bush’s remarks echoed the warning he delivered Thursday at Fort Campbell, Ky., when he said the deadly train bombings in Madrid showed that terrorists kill innocent people “without conscience, without mercy.”
“They cause suffering and grief and they rejoice in it,” Bush said. “This terrorist enemy will never be appeased, because death is their banner and their cause.”
That message, aides said, was also a caution against the kind of decision Spanish voters made Sunday in the wake of the bombings when they ousted the government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, one of Bush’s staunchest allies in the anti-terror war, and elected someone who opposes the Iraq war as their new leader.
In a gesture of unity despite Spain’s threatened defection from Bush’s “coalition of the willing,” dozens of ambassadors from countries closely aligned with the United States attended Bush’s speech. Spain’s new leader, Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has said he will withdraw 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq unless the United Nations takes control of peacekeeping.
Bush’s effort was dealt another blow Thursday when Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, another key U.S. ally, said his country was “misled” about whether Saddam’s regime had weapons of mass destruction.
President calls Polish leader
In a phone call Friday, Bush urged Kwasniewski not to waver on Poland's commitment to Iraq.
“Those who are pulling out, showing their weakness, are very naive to expect to be guaranteed safety and be spared of terrorist attacks,” Bush said, according to a statement from Kwasniewski’s press office.
“Be sure, they will attack the weak,” Bush was quoted as telling Kwasniewski during the 20-minute conversation.
Poland, one of Bush’s key allies in Europe, controls one of four stabilization zones in Iraq and has deployed 2,400 troops in its biggest military operation abroad since World War II.
“We will be in Iraq as long as it takes to reach our goal, plus one more day,” Kwasniewski’s statement said.
In France, meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the world is a more dangerous place because of the Iraq war, which unleashed postwar violence and an upswing in terrorism.
“This is a belief that I have never stopped expressing,” he told Le Monde newspaper.
"Terrorism didn’t exist in Iraq before,” de Villepin said. “Today, it is one of the world’s principal sources of world terrorism.”
Kerry issues anniversary statement
Bush’s speech was also given added impetus by rising criticism from Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and Bush’s expected opponent in the November election.
In a statement Friday, Kerry recognized "the courage and enormous skill of the United States military" but accused Bush of breaking promises "to go to war only as a last resort, and to have a plan to win the peace."
"He misled the American people in his own State of the Union Address about Saddam's nuclear program and WMD's, and refused — and continues to refuse - to level with the American people about the cost of the war," Kerry added. "Simply put, this president didn't tell the truth about the war for the beginning. And our country is paying the price."
Survey finds split nation
The National Annenberg Election Survey this month found Americans divided on whether they approve of the way Bush is handling Iraq, with 47 percent saying “yes” and 49 percent saying “no.” The survey also found they were split on whether the Iraq situation merited going to war.
As of Thursday, 568 U.S. service members had died in Iraq since military operations began on March, 19, 2003, with most of those killed during combat. More than three-fourths of the dead, or 430, were killed after May 1, when Bush flew to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
Billions of U.S. dollars have been spent on the operation, and the Bush administration looks anxiously ahead to a June 30 deadline for handing over control of the country to an interim Iraqi government, one without Saddam at the helm. The deposed Iraqi leader was captured in December and remains in U.S. custody.
But the postwar violence continues.
A deadly car bomb exploded Thursday in the southern city of Basra, three Iraqi journalists were killed in a drive-by shooting near Baghdad and three U.S. soldiers died in mortar attacks. Seven people died Wednesday in a bombing at a Baghdad hotel.
After the speech, Bush and first lady Laura Bush were to visit with soldiers and their families at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.