White House Highlights Progress in Iraq

AP | 10/08/03 | TERENCE HUNT

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, facing growing doubts about his handling of postwar Iraq, is launching a concerted campaign to convince Americans that the United States is making solid progress in the war against terror despite growing casualties and setbacks.

The White House offensive will include a series of speeches by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, as well as high-profile trips to Iraq by Cabinet secretaries to illustrate areas of progress, such as the reopening of schools and the introduction of a new currency, officials said Tuesday night.

Bush at times will reach beyond the Washington media to try to drive his point home with regional and local press corps, the officials said. The United States is also beefing up press operations in Baghdad to provide more live video opportunities and greater access to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The moves come as a skeptical Congress begins work on Bush's $87 billion proposal for Iraq and Afghanistan. While the administration is confident of winning something close to Bush's proposal, the bill has become a target for Democrats hoping to weaken the president's hand and for some Republicans uncomfortable with its cost.

``Progress in a project of this massive scale is not easy to put down in sound bites,'' White House communications director Dan Bartlett said. ``It is a story that is unfolding before our eyes. It's a story that is very complex and is very difficult to tell in a short period of time. What this will be is a sustained effort to show the American people firsthand the benefits of our commitment.''

Bush will devote all of his Saturday radio addresses in October to Iraq and will sit down for a series of interviews with regional media Monday to press his case. Rice will open the effort with a speech Wednesday before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Bush will follow up with speeches Thursday in New Hampshire and Cheney will take on critics of Bush's Iraq policy in a speech Friday in Washington, the officials said.

``This is a time when we are accelerating our efforts on a number of fronts and as we do, it's important to keep the American people informed,'' presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Recent polls show Bush's standing with the public has weakened as Americans have become increasingly concerned about postwar Iraq and the economy at home.

In what officials said would be a new speech, Bush will use appearances in New Hampshire to talk both about the U.S. economy and Iraq six months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Rice's speech Wednesday will argue that Saddam failed to meet the disarmament demands of the United Nations and sought to conceal his weapons programs, drawing on the report of weapons inspector David Kay, officials said.

10/08/03 10:54 EDT

[onedoug]

Onward the Good!

[ChewedGum]

It is about time.

Gum

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[Catalonia]

President Bush, facing growing doubts about his handling of postwar Iraq, is launching a concerted campaign to convince Americans that the United States is making solid progress in the war against terror despite growing casualties and setbacks.

Here's how that first paragraph should be written:

The U.S. media, faced with the prospect of President Bush's re-election campaign being bolstered by an improving situation in Iraq, is trying to paint the White House's efforts to answer the biased and inaccurate reporting on Iraq as governmental spin.