US President George W. Bush defended his much-criticized policies toward Iraq, Iran and North Korea on Wednesday, even as Congress moved toward a vote assailing his Iraq troop increase.
In his first White House news conference of the year, Bush said his new war strategy should be given time to work, denied that the administration was fabricating allegations on Iranian involvement in Iraq and rejected criticism of a nuclear deal with North Korea.
As US and Iraqi troops launched a sweeping security operation on the streets of Baghdad, Bush warned of more bloodshed ahead but defended his war plan as the best way to support the Iraqi government's efforts to contain the violence.
"The fundamental question is, can we help this government have the security force level necessary to make sure that the ethnic cleansing that was taking place in certain neighborhoods is stopped?" he said.
But, he said, "the operation to secure Baghdad is going to take time, and there will be violence."
Bush defended his decision to send 21,500 extra US troops to secure Baghdad and criticized a proposed US congressional resolution -- scheduled to be voted on today -- denouncing the troop buildup.
"Later this week, the House of Representatives will vote on a resolution that opposes our new plan in Iraq before it has a chance to work," Bush said. "People are prejudging the outcome of this."
Three days after anonymous US officials in Baghdad told a roomful of reporters that "the senior levels of the Iranian government" had approved weapons shipments to Iraqi fighters, Bush said he could not vouch for it.
But he stood by charges that the al-Qods brigade of Iran's Revolutionary Guard had provided explosives used against US troops in Iraq, and dismissed as "preposterous" any suggestion that Washington was fabricating charges against Tehran.
"I can say with certainty that the Qods force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops," he said, referring to improvised explosive devices like roadside bombs.
"I do not know whether or not the Qods force was ordered from the top echelons of government," he said. "But my point is, what's worse, them ordering it and it happening or them not ordering it and it's happening?"
Rejecting Washington's accusations, Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tehran had no interest in fomenting sectarian conflict and wanted "to preserve the integrity of the territory and the sovereignty of Iraq."
Bush ruled out any direct bilateral talks for now with the Islamic republic.
"If I thought we could achieve success, I would sit down. But I don't think we can achieve success right now," he said, stressing that he believed the ongoing multilateral approach to Iran's nuclear program was paying off.
Amid concerns of a US invasion of Iran, 2008 presidential hopeful and Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton said Bush must seek Congress authorization before any such attack.
"If the administration believes that any, any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority," she said.
On North Korea, Bush defended the nuclear deal against critics who said that offering aid and other guarantees to North Korea in return for disbanding its nuclear network was rewarding "bad behavior" and a sign of US weakness.
Bush hailed the landmark deal as a "good first step" but much would depend on the communist regime keeping its word.
"There is a lot of work to be done to make sure that the commitments made in this agreement become a reality," he said.
Under the accord, North Korea will be given 50,000 tonnes of fuel aid for closing their key Yongbyon nuclear facility north of Pyongyang and allowing UN nuclear inspectors back into the country.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
DIVERSIFY: While Japan already has plentiful access to LNG, a pipeline from Alaska would help it move away from riskier sources such as Russia and the Middle East Japan is considering offering support for a US$44 billion gas pipeline in Alaska as it seeks to court US President Donald Trump and forestall potential trade friction, three officials familiar with the matter said. Officials in Tokyo said Trump might raise the project, which he has said is key for US prosperity and security, when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time in Washington as soon as next week, the sources said. Japan has doubts about the viability of the proposed 1,287km pipeline — intended to link fields in Alaska’s north to a port in the south, where
RSS