Bush Insists He Has Made America Safer
Mon Jul 12, 2004 03:35 PM ET
By Steve Holland
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.