President Bush said on Saturday, one year after invading Iraq, that ensuring the country’s future was a "global responsibility" and pledged to do whatever it takes to defeat militants attacking occupation forces and Iraqis.
Bush appealed for global resolve, and warned countries against trying to “appease” al-Qaida after Spain’s incoming Socialist government pledged to pull its troops out of Iraq in the wake of deadly bomb attacks in Madrid on March 11.
“Helping Iraq emerge as a free nation is a global responsibility, and the nations of the world are meeting their responsibilities,” Bush said.
Bush singled out for praise troops from Britain, Poland, Japan, El Salvador and Macedonia — but made no mention of the 1,300-strong Spanish force in Iraq.
“The resolve of our coalition is firm. We will never turn over Iraq to terrorists who intend our own destruction,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “Whatever it takes, we will fight and work to assure the success of freedom in Iraq.”
Trying to bolster support
Bush is trying to restore the global support that existed for the war on terror before the Iraq conflict produced a bitter international divide.
He was clearly speaking of Spain, where suspected al-Qaida bombings killed 202 people and were believed to have been a factor in Spanish voters throwing out a pro-U.S. government in favor of Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Zapatero has called the Iraq war a disaster and pledged to withdraw his country’s 1,300 troops from Iraq if the country is not placed under U.N. control.
But Bush warned, “No concession will appease their malice. No accommodation will satisfy their endless demands. No course of therapy will cure them of their hatred. There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy.”
Bush has also urged Poland not to waver in its commitment to Iraq after President Aleksander Kwasniewski said authorities had been "misled" about weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been found since U.S.-led forces deposed Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
A Polish statement, released by the White House on Friday, said Kwasniewski believed that Saddam — rather than the Bush administration — “misled the world in believing that he had had the weapons of mass destruction and might use them.”
Poland has pledged not to withdraw from Iraq “until the mission of stabilization is successfully accomplished.”
