Bush: Coalition will defeat Iraq terrorists

The Iraq coalition will overcome the wave of terrorist-style attacks destabilising the post-Saddam Hussein state to help it emerge as a free nation, President George Bush vowed today.

On the first anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the United States President painted the country as a key battleground between Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and the US and its allies.

Against the backdrop of anti-war protests in major cities around the world, President Bush urged the whole international community to contribute to Iraq’s reconstruction.

In his weekly radio address to the US people, President Bush said: “Helping Iraq emerge as a free nation is a global responsibility.

“We will never turn over Iraq to terrorists who intend our own destruction. We will not fail the Iraqi people, who have placed their trust in us.”

With polls showing President Bush with about as many detractors at home on his Iraq policies as backers and the issue at the forefront of the presidential campaign, he also linked his actions in Iraq to the larger war on terror – a subject on which he is more popular.

He urged allies to stand firm in that battle as well.

“The terrorists hate and target a free Iraq. They also hate and target every country that stands for democracy and tolerance and freedom in the world.

“The war on terror is not a figure of speech. It is the inescapable calling of our generation. Whatever it takes we will seek, and find, and destroy the terrorists.”

In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was at his country residence Chequers, and doing nothing to mark the anniversary.

However, his envoy to Iraq Sir Jeremy Greenstock insisted that Saddam Hussein did have programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction. Speaking from Baghdad, Sir Jeremy said he remained convinced that the deposed dictator had been “hiding something”.

Sir Jeremy, a former British ambassador to the United Nations, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We knew that Saddam had programmes, and the evidence is still there that he did.

“The group looking at that still has a lot of work to do, as I think we will see from their next report.

“I remain convinced that the judgment a year ago that Saddam was hiding something and was cocking a snook at the United Nations was absolutely right, and I still remain convinced of that.”

Sir Jeremy acknowledged that a year on from the invasion, the security situation in Iraq remained perilous. He argued, however, that huge progress had been made in creating a viable political framework for the country’s future.

Labour MP Ann Clwyd, Mr Blair’s special envoy on human rights in Iraq, said in a statement: “I’m very optimistic about the future of Iraq. I have been to Iraq five times in the last few months and each time I go, things are improving.

“Freedom of speech is of incredible importance to the people of Iraq and this change is best reflected by the words of the leader of Baghdad City Council. He said to me on a recent trip: ‘A year ago I would have been able to say to you hello, long live the President, goodbye. Today I can talk with you whenever and about whatever I want.”’

The Government continued to face questions about the wisdom of the decision to participate in the US-led invasion, however.

Speaking at his party’s spring conference in Southport, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell told delegates that no weapons of mass destruction had been found, and there was no evidence the world was any safr from terrorism.

Yet Britain faced a big bill for its long-term commitment to policing the country in the wake of Saddam’s removal, he said.

“Twelve months on and the Government has still failed to make its case for military action,” Sir Menzies said.

“Iraq has become a honey pot for terrorists, and Britain’s most senior police officer and the head of MI5 both tell us that it is not a question of if but when there may be a major terrorist attack in the UK.”