US President George W. Bush pleaded late on Tuesday with a war-weary US public to give his unpopular Iraq strategy a chance, warning that a US defeat could ignite an "epic battle" engulfing the entire Middle East.
"For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective," Bush said in his annual State of the Union speech, striking a more defiant than downbeat tone despite his mounting political woes.
Two weeks after unveiling a new strategy centered on sending 21,500 more soldiers into battle, the embattled president gave no ground to his critics and urged lawmakers and the US public: "Give it a chance to work."
Bush, fighting to save his presidency and derail congressional action against his Iraq plan, also laid out a handful of domestic policies to cut US gasoline use and pollution, expand health care and reform immigration.
But the chief goal of the 49-minute televised speech was to win a reprieve on Iraq from a skeptical US public and an increasingly hostile US Congress, led by opposition Democrats for the first time in a dozen years.
With his poll numbers mired at record lows, and many Americans dubious that the war launched in March 2003 can be won, Bush insisted: "On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle."
"So let us find our resolve, and turn events towards victory," he said, as lawmakers prepared to take up symbolic legislation sharply critical of deepening US military involvement in the war.
Mindful that roughly two in three US citizens oppose his plan, Bush said that he and US military commanders had looked at all options in Iraq.
"In the end, I chose this course of action because it provides the best chance for success," he said.
The president acknowledged a dramatic upsurge in sectarian violence, telling Americans leery of seeing US troops caught in the crossfire: "This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in."
In fact, while Bush tied events in Iraq to the war on terrorism -- which he declared in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- he focused on the threat of future sectarian strife.
"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides," he said.
"We could expect an epic battle between Shiite extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country and, in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict," he said.
In an answer to global critics who accuse him of neglecting climate change, Bush called for a 20 percent cut in US gasoline use by 2017, a move the White House said would lead to steep cuts in emissions partly blamed for global warming.
He also called for a doubling of US emergency oil reserves by 2027, and made a renewed push for a sweeping immigration reform plan emphasizing a guest worker program.
Bush also called for tax code-based health care reforms that seemed to have little chance of becoming law, and vowed to submit spending plans in two weeks that would balance the budget in five years.
Also see story:
Bush calls for cooperation on security
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary