Bush says Iraq war worth it, cites bin Laden
 

FORT BRAGG, N.C., Wednesday (Reuters)

U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged American doubts about his Iraq strategy but argued it was worth it in a major address on Tuesday night that sought to connect Iraq's violent insurgency to Osama bin Laden and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we will fight them there, we will fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won," Bush said.

Democrats immediately charged Bush failed to offer a clear plan for success in Iraq. "It is not enough for the president to say 'stay the course' and make a few minor adjustments. The president needs to lay out a concrete plan," said New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

Bush, whose approval ratings have fallen to the lowest levels of his presidency in part because of growing fears about Iraq, invoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, repeatedly and cited al Qaeda leader bin Laden as a reason for continuing the effort in Iraq.

No connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks was ever established, but Bush said Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism in part because the insurgency is led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has sworn allegiance to bin Laden.

"The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden," Bush said.

Bush also argued against setting a deadline for a U.S. withdrawal as some members of the U.S. Congress have demanded. "Setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done," he said. Likewise, Bush said he had no plans to send more U.S. troops to Iraq to bolster the 138,000 already there, saying it would "undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight."

California Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, had doubts about Bush's argument. "You know the president is on weak ground when he exploits the sacred ground of 9/11 so many times in his speech knowing that there was no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq when he initiated his preemptive strike," she told NBC.

Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator of the anti-war group, United for Peace and Justice, added: "By bringing that up again, he makes it sound as if we're there because we going after those people who attacked us on 9/11 and that's not's what's happening."

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, sometimes a Bush critic, seemed to back Bush's link to 9/11. "We are facing a certain element of terrorism,' he told CNN.

Increasingly, Americans see the Iraq war as separate from 9/11. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll this week found for the first time that by a margin of 50 percent to 47 percent, Americans see the war in Iraq as separate from the war on terrorism.

With his credibility on the line, Bush marked the year since the U.S. transfer of power to Iraqis by offering a far more sober picture of events in Iraq than Vice President Dick Cheney's forecast of an insurgency in its "last throes."