WASHINGTON, 22 March 2004 — A year to the day after going to war to topple Saddam Hussein, President Bush is politically weaker at home, widely disliked abroad, and struggling to hold together the fraying “coalition of the willing” which now occupies Iraq.
As he begins a re-election campaign in which Iraq will be a key issue, Bush leads an America where — unlike many countries in Europe and beyond — a slim majority of the population still believe that the war was justified and has made the US and the world a safer place.
Nonetheless that majority has shrunk markedly from the 70 percent level of March 2003 to little more than 50 percent today, and the president’s own approval rating has followed a similar path. To a large extent, Bush’s electoral prospects are now prisoner of what happens in Iraq.
A continuation of the violence and an increase in US casualties could well tip the scales against him. But a visible improvement in security, an improving Iraqi economy and a smooth transfer of power by the upcoming June 30 deadline could be decisive in securing a second White House term.
In a major speech on Friday marking the first anniversary of the war, a determined Bush told some 80 foreign ambassadors — including those of France, Germany and Russia, all vehement opponents of the war — and insisted that differences over the war in Iraq “belong to the past.” But, deliberately or otherwise, the president highlighted the fundamental difference between himself and his critics, both abroad and among Democrats: His belief that the overthrow of Saddam was part of the “war on terror,” in contrast to the view in Europe, and of opponents in the US, that the invasion was at best irrelevant to the war on terror, and may have made the problem worse.
The first part of his 22-minute speech, in the ceremonial setting of the East Room in the White House, was devoted not to the specific situation in Iraq, but to the wider threat of terrorism. And as he did in the wake of the Sept. 11 2001 attacks, he said that in this struggle there is no middle way.
“There is no neutral ground in the fight between civilization and terror,” Bush declared. “There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy.” He also seemed to echo the charges of appeasement leveled by some top Republicans in the wake of last Sunday’s shock election defeat of the Spanish government after the train bombings in Madrid.
“Any sign of sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations,” he argued. Each attack was designed to demoralize and divide the Western allies — therefore “each must be answered with greater determination, deeper resolve and bolder action against the killers.” Though the speech was ostensibly non-partisan, it fed directly into the White House’s strategy for re-election, to showcase Bush as a resolute commander-in-chief, clear in his thinking, in contrast to the indecisiveness and endless second thoughts of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, his opponent in November.
But on this first anniversary, the administration has had to cope with the realities on the ground: A new surge in violence in Iraq and terrorist attacks that have now spread to Europe, and seem likely to drive Spain from the coalition. From Baghdad top Bush officials were delivering an identical message, that whatever the hiccoughs, US policy toward Iraq was basically on course.
“Yes there will be difficult days ahead,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said, conceding there had been a spike in the number of attacks on US soldiers, Western civilians and ordinary Iraqis, as the insurgents had moved from harder to softer targets. But he insisted, as did Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on the morning television talk shows, that the progress far outweighed the setbacks.
But for all its insistence on “staying the course,” the administration cannot hide the fact that the war has been far more expensive than envisaged, both in financial and human terms. The cost of war and post-conflict rebuilding is $160 billion and counting, while 574 US servicemen have been killed, 434 of them since Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1 2003, and thousands wounded.
It must also face up to the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the original justification for the war, and to a growing international hostility to Bush. The incoming Spanish prime minister has said he hopes Kerry wins the election, as did the former Malayasian prime minister, Mahathir Mohammed.
