Bush calls for 'world offensive'

By Maxim Kniazkov in Washington

10/01/06 "News" -- - STUNG by criticism, US President George W. Bush has called for fighting America's enemies "across the world" as he stepped up his counter-offensive following charges that his policies were breeding a new generation of Islamic terrorists.

The call, delivered in his weekly radio address, was aimed to counter a rash of accusations that the Bush administration had seriously mishandled the war in Iraq and created fertile political ground for Islamic extremism.

The criticism was fuelled by a new National Intelligence Estimate, portions of which were declassified this past week.

The document argues that the war in Iraq had spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals determined to strike against the United States.

Casting another cloud over the administration's policy was a new book by veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, State of Denial, that alleges a number of policy blunders committed in Iraq, amid bitter feuding by the president and his closest aides and refusal to acknowledge reality.

The controversy may have further dimmed the public's view of the war. The latest CNN television poll showed 61 per cent of Americans now believed the war in Iraq was going either "very badly'' or "moderately badly",' compared to 38 per cent who thought it was going "very well'' or "moderately well".

But Mr Bush insisted today that claims that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was helping foster anti-American terrorism were tantamount to buying "into the enemy's propaganda".

"The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world,'' the president said.

"So we will remain on the offense until the terrorists are defeated and this fight is won.''

The Republican president, who just two days ago branded opposition Democrats "the party of cut-and-run", argued an early withdrawal from Iraq, as suggested by some Democrats, would only embolden terrorists.

"It would help them find new recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks on our Nation, and it would give the terrorists a new sanctuary in the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions,'' Mr Bush stressed.

"America must not allow this to happen.''

He said that for al-Qaeda and its allies, a safe haven in Iraq "would be even more valuable than the one they lost in Afghanistan".

However, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview published today, offered a different rationale for continued US military presence in Iraq, saying it was needed to counter the growing influence of neighbouring Iran.

"We just have to fight tooth and nail for the victory of the Iraqis who do not want Iranian influence in their daily lives,'' she told The Wall Street Journal.

"We've got a chance to resist the Iranian push into the region, but we better get about it.''

The dissonant messages came against the backdrop of stinging criticism from top Democrats, who have found in the intelligence estimate and the Woodward book fresh fodder for attacks on the administration ahead of the November 7 midterm congressional elections, in which they hope to win back control of the House of Representatives and maybe even the Senate.

Democrats have long accused the White House of failing to foresee an Iraqi insurgency, create a viable international coalition behind the invasion, and of sending too few soldiers to do control the restive country.

Now they are also charging the president is in a state of denial.

"He doesn't want to see the facts. He doesn't want to acknowledge reality,'' Carl Levin, the top Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee, insisted yesterday.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called Bush's political counteroffensive "the product of a desperate White House with no credibility left with the American people".

Copyright 2006 News Limited.