Bush, Blair Say Iraq War Is Not Cause of Attacks [View All]

Bush, Blair Say Iraq War Is Not Cause of Attacks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1827-2003Nov20.html
By Dana Milbank and Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 21, 2003; Page A01

LONDON, Nov. 20 -- President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared Thursday that the invasion of Iraq was not to blame for the recent wave of terrorist violence and that the bombs that devastated two British facilities in Turkey proved the need to press ahead with the military campaign.

"Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary, and no act of thugs or killers will change our resolve or alter their fate," Bush said at a joint news conference with Blair, as tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered on the city's streets to protest the Iraq war. "We will finish the job we have begun."

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Blair echoed Bush's remarks, calling for attacking terrorists "wherever and whenever we can."

Bush raised the possibility of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. When a reporter mentioned the United States' announced plans to reduce troop levels, the president responded: "We could have less troops in Iraq, we could have the same number of troops in Iraq, we could have more troops in Iraq -- whatever is necessary to secure Iraq."

A top aide to Bush, who briefed reporters after the news conference on condition that she not be identified, said that Bush was not announcing a change in policy and that expectations remained that troop levels would be reduced. "There is simply nothing to suggest that the number of American forces would need to increase," the official said. "In fact, the conversations with the commanders have gone the other way."

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Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, responded earlier Thursday to critics who have questioned the effectiveness of the war in Iraq, saying he believed it had diminished the threat of terrorism. He also was critical of Bush's predecessor. "What people have got to remember is that September 11th happened in 2001 and not in 2003," Straw said. "It was planned under the presidency of Bill Clinton."

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Bush, who struck a defiant tone throughout the news conference, produced what appeared to be glances of surprise from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the White House national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, when he rejected a question's premise that he planned to reduce troops in Iraq.