In Idaho, Bush vows no ‘retreat’

NAMPA, Idaho – President Bush, rebutting a rising anti-war movement in the country and on Capitol Hill, told National Guard soldiers and their families Wednesday that terrorists “want us to retreat” but vowed that he never will.

Bush spoke frankly for the second time in three days about the casualties the U.S. military is continuing to suffer in Iraq but rejected demands for the troops to come home, calls that have gained attention during the month he has spent at his ranch in Texas.

An immediate withdrawal “would only embolden the terrorists and create a staging ground to launch more attacks against America and free nations,” he said. “So long as I’m the president, we will stay, we will fight, and we will win the war on terror.”

Bush’s status as a wartime president has helped him politically in the past, but his advisers said they are worried that tragedies in Iraq – and a sour reaction at home – could turn that into a burden this fall.

White House officials said they viewed the speech, the second of three he plans to give in the two weeks before Labor Day, as a crucial opportunity for Bush to show both compassion and resolve when polls of public support are flirting with Vietnam War-era depths.

During a month when he has been shadowed by Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, the president drew thunderous applause from the camouflage-clad National Guard troops and others in the Idaho Center arena when he saluted “a mom named Tammy Pruett,” who has sent six loved ones to Iraq.

Asserting that “the stakes in Iraq could not be higher,” Bush contended that the nation is “achieving our strategic objectives in Iraq.” It is that last contention – that the United States is moving purposely toward its goals and an accompanying exit from Iraq – that has been subject to increasing skepticism by Democrats this summer.

Bush’s aides said they realize that the death toll in Iraq – at least 1,867 at the time Bush spoke – will soon reach 2,000, a milestone that will provide a platform for his critics. Against this backdrop, the aides said the speech was designed to portray a stark choice between completing the mission and showing weakness to terrorists prepared to strike – suggesting dire consequences at home from a hasty withdrawal abroad.

Sheehan, whose son Casey died in an ambush of his Army unit in Iraq last year, returned to Crawford, Texas, late Wednesday – about the time that Bush returned from Idaho – and resumed a peace vigil that she broke off last week to care for her ailing mother.