Bush vows to "stay the course" on anti-terror war

Amid growing public skepticism on the Iraq war, US President George W. Bush vowed on Wednesday to "stay on the course" on the anti-terrorism war as long as he is president.

"So long as I am president we will stay, we will fight and we will win the war on terrorism," Bush said in a speech in Nampa, Idaho, to members of the Idaho National Guard and their families.

This was the second speech in a week by the president to rebuild support for the Iraq war. In a speech to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday, Bush defended his policy on the Iraq war, saying that the only way to defend the United States was to "go after the terrorists where they live."

"We'll complete our work in Afghanistan and Iraq," Bush said in his speech in Idaho.

Dismissing critics' call for US military withdrawal from Iraq, he said "an immediate withdrawal of our troops in Iraq, or the broader Middle East ... would only embolden the terrorists and create a staging ground to launch more attacks against America and free nations."

Bush emphasized the sacrifices that military families have made, and spotlighted a military mother who has five sons and husband serve or have served in Iraq.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said the president, "I made a decision. America will not wait to be attacked again. We will confront emerging threats before they fully materialize."

Bush was to meet privately with some relatives of American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, before returning in the evening to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where anti-war Cindy Sheehan has been staging a protest and is demanding a meeting with him to discuss her soldier son's death in Iraq last year.

Bush, whom Sheehan met shortly after her son was killed in Iraq in 2004, has criticized her as unrepresentative of most military families he talked to. "She expressed her opinion. I disagree with it," Bush told reporters Tuesday at a resort in Idaho.

With US causalities in Iraq rising, recent polls found low public support for Bush's handling of the Iraq war. A poll by polling agency Ipsos early this month showed Bush's approval rating on the Iraq issue at 38 percent, the lowest point in recent months, and his overall job approval at 42 percent.

Source: Xinhua