WASHINGTON, 22 March 2006 — President Bush said yesterday there will be “more tough fighting ahead” in Iraq, but denied claims that the nation is in the grips of a civil war.
“The Iraqis had a chance to fall apart and they didn’t,” he said at a rare White House news conference timed to mark the third anniversary of the launch the US invasion of Iraq.
The president, who has bet the success of his presidency on the Iraq war, held his second-full blown news conference of the year yesterday to highlight his Administration’s new push to confront doubts about his strategy in Iraq.
“Iraq has the opportunity to build a democracy that reflects this country’s diversity, that serves its people and is an active partner in the fight against the terrorists,” he said.
“Now Iraq’s leaders must take advantage of the opportunity. I was encouraged by the announcement Sunday that Iraqi leaders are making progress toward a council that gives each of the country’s main political factions a voice in making security and economic policies.” Bush said he had agreed to US talks with Iran to underscore his point that Tehran’s attempts to spread sectarian violence or provide support to Iraqi insurgents was unacceptable to the United States. An interesting interchange took place yesterday when the president called on the doyen of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas, whom this administration has pointedly ignored at briefings for over four years.
Thomas was ready and asked Bush why the US had invaded Iraq. “Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, and wounded thousands of Americans and Iraqis for their lifetime.
“Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House… what’s your real reason? You have said it wasn’t oil, the quest for oil. Was it for Israel? What was it?” Bush bristled at her suggestion that he wanted to wage war against that country since early in his presidency. I think your premise, in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist, that I wanted war… is just flat wrong, Helen. No president wants war. To those who say otherwise, it’s simply not true,” Bush said. More than 2,300 Americans have died in three years of war in Iraq. Polls show the public’s support of the war and Bush himself has dramatically declined in recent months. “I can understand how Americans are worried about whether or not we can win,” Bush said, adding that most Americans want victory “but they’re concerned about whether or not we can win.” The president said he disagreed with former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday, “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.” Bush said others inside and outside Iraq think the nation has stopped short of civil war.
“We all recogized that there is violence, that there is sectarian violance. But the way I look at the situation is, the Iraqis looked and decided not to go into civil war,” he said. Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll. Bush said he’s confident of victory in Iraq. “I’m optimistic we’ll suceed. If not, I’d pull our troops out,” he said.
