Bush to Osama: We’ll find you

WASHINGTON, DC: In his televised address to the nation late on Monday, United States President George W Bush said he had a clear message to Osama bin Laden and his militant group al-Qaeda: “No matter how long it takes, America will find you, and we will bring you to justice.”

 

In his fifth and latest speech related to the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the war on terror, Bush was restrained, but more emphatic than his previous four speeches. He called the war on terror “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.”

 

“America did not want this war (on terror),” he said, in a speech broadcast live across the US on the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. “America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over – and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious.”

 

Concerned about falling ratings over a never-ending war in Iraq, Bush has been on the offensive for the last month, releasing key classified information with every speech. A week ago, he admitted the existence of secret CIA prisons where captured al-Qaeda operatives have been held and interrogated. Although he denied torture, the New York Times on Sunday reported that the CIA had indeed tortured the detainees using methods that included keeping them with minimal clothes in freezing temperatures and blasting heavy metal music in their solitary cells.

 

Some political analysts say the latest speech was “political”, keeping in mind the mid-term congressional elections this November. Nina Easton, Fortune magazine’s Washington Bureau Chief, said on Fox News: “This was clearly a political speech. Bush has been referring to the war on Iraq only during election years. He did that in 2004 (for the presidential elections), and he is doing it now.”

 

Indeed, Bush devoted a significant portion of his speech clarifying his position on Iraq and then equating a victory in Iraq to the victory over terror. He said: “I’m often asked why we’re in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat. The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.”

 

He added: “Al-Qaeda and other extremists from across the world have come to Iraq to stop the rise of a free society in the heart of the Middle East... Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone.”

 

Bush also repeated what he has been stating in all his recent speeches: “If we yield Iraq to men like bin Laden, our enemies will be emboldened; they will gain a new safe haven; they will use Iraq’s resources to fuel their extremist movement. We will not allow this to happen. America will stay in the fight.” The president has been the target of intense media and public pressure on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, where sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis have taken on the nature of civil war, according to US Central Command commander General John Abizaid.

 

Later in the speech, Bush said: “This struggle (the war on terror) has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization... We look to the day when moms and dads throughout the Middle East see a future of hope and opportunity for their children. And when that good day comes, the clouds of war will part, the appeal of radicalism will decline, and we will leave our children with a better and safer world.”