WASHINGTON – Defending his war policy, President Bush said Wednesday that Iraq is making quiet, steady progress in repairing its shattered economy, though reconstruction “has not always gone as well as we had hoped” because of unrelenting violence.
“Rebuilding a nation devastated by a dictator is a large undertaking,” the president said. “It’s even harder when terrorists are trying to blow up that which the Iraqis are trying to build.”
Bush spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations in the second of four addresses to answer criticism about America’s presence in Iraq, where the U.S. death toll has eclipsed 2,100. Bush is laboring under the lowest job approval rating of his presidency, and the speeches are part of a public relations campaign in the run-up to the Dec. 15 vote in Iraq to create a democratically elected government that will run the country for the next four years
While not admitting errors, Bush spoke about how the U.S. “adjusted our approach” in helping rebuild Iraqi cities. In his speech on Iraq last week, Bush talked about early miscalculations that were made in training Iraqi forces. A majority of Americans now say the war was a mistake, and critics of the administration’s reconstruction strategy say not enough has been done in the nearly three years since the invasion to reduce unemployment, step up oil production and keep the lights on.
“The Iraqi people want jobs, security and basic services, and the president’s words will continue to ring hollow until these urgent needs are met,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. “Nearly half of the funds appropriated by Congress remain unspent and millions of dollars have been lost to corruption.”
Bush said the U.S. has helped Iraqis conduct nearly 3,000 renovation projects at schools, train more than 30,000 teachers, distribute more than 8 million textbooks, rebuild irrigation infrastructure to help more than 400,000 rural Iraqis and improve drinking water for more than 3 million people.
The U.S.-led coalition also has helped Iraqis introduce a new currency, reopen a stock exchange and extend $21 million in microcredit and small business loans to Iraqi entrepreneurs, he said.
Bush said victory will be achieved when insurgents and others seeking to derail democracy in Iraq can no longer threaten the future of the nation; when Iraqi security forces can safeguard their own citizens; and when Iraq is not a haven for terrorists plotting attacks against the U.S. Democrats say the U.S. engagement in Iraq is open-ended and costly in terms of lives and dollars. They say the president refrains from giving the American people an idea of when U.S. troops might be able to return home.
Associated Press
President Bush speaks about his Iraq policy Wednesday before the Council on Foreign Relations.
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