OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Under fire for intelligence failures at home and abroad, President Bush tried on Monday to convince American voters he has made them safer since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and told them "we were right to go into Iraq.
Faced with polls that show many believe the terror threat against them has increased due to the Iraq war, Bush argued that wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and al Qaeda have made them safer, as has diplomacy that led Libya to surrender its weapons of mass destruction programs.
"Today because America has acted, and because America has led, the forces of terror and tyranny have suffered defeat after defeat, and America and the world are safer," Bush told employees at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where components of Libya's nuclear program are being stored.
Bush's war against terrorism was supposed to be an easy sell on the campaign trail, and is an important plank of his re-election effort.
But the Iraq war has spawned doubts among Americans. In a recent NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll, 51 percent of Americans said they felt the threat of terror was increased, not reduced.
His Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, responded by saying Bush's policies had made the country less safe by failing to secure nuclear material that could fall into the hands of terrorists and by allowing North Korea to become more of a threat.
"It's not enough just to give speeches. America will only be safer when we get results," he told reporters in Boston.
'REMOVED A DECLARED ENEMY'
A Senate intelligence committee report last week said U.S. intelligence agencies overstated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, one of the White House's chief justifications for the war which removed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power. None was ever found.
"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq," Bush said. "We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them."
Democrats have used the report to accuse Bush of exaggerating evidence used to justify war against Iraq. Republicans said the Bush administration was a victim of bad intelligence.
Bush said that his policies since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington have led to an Afghanistan headed toward elections and cooperation against al Qaeda with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
But problems persist in Afghanistan's attempt to hold elections after years of Taliban rule. A bomb blast killed at least five people and wounded 34 in the western Afghan city of Herat on Sunday, raising new concern about security for landmark polls in October.
Bush said al Qaeda was receiving help three years ago from inside Saudi Arabia with little opposition and that the Saudi government is now going after al Qaeda in its own country. Critics say Saudi Arabia only began responding in earnest to the al Qaeda threat after repeated attacks by militants.
After taking a look at centrifuge parts intended for use in Libya's nuclear weapons program, Bush said its decision to disavow unconventional weapons was "encouraging evidence that nations can abandon these ambitions and choose a better way."
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