Bush seeks to reassure on rising casualties

President George Bush will use the first 12 minutes of his prime-time news conference tonight to reassure the US about rising casualties and instability in Iraq.

“A lot has been happening in Iraq,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in previewing what the president will say before taking questions at the twelfth news conference of his presidency.

“The president wants to give the American people an update on Iraq and talk about the way forward.”

This is the third time Bush has used television prime time to hold a news conference. It was scheduled to begin at 1am.

“The president believes this is a good time to provide the American people with an update,” McClellan said, adding that he expects the president also will address the recent violence in Iraq. “

This is an opportunity when we can reach many Americans.”

White House communications director Dan Bartlett said the president also is prepared to address questions about a memo, titled Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US, that he received on August 6, 2001, as part of the President’s Daily Brief.

McClellan said the White House was considering letting the CIA analyst who wrote the August 6 memo meet with the commission investigating the September 11 attacks.

Both Iraq and the administration’s response to the pre-September 11 memo that warned of threats from al-Qaida are crucial to Bush’s re-election strategy, which promotes the president’s record on national security.

With the September 11 commission hearings and the recent battles in Iraq being broadcast into American homes, this is a good time for Bush to defend his policies, said Stephen Hess, a political analyst at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution.

“This is an administration that gets in trouble because it doesn’t speak up in a timely way and defend itself,” Hess said. The news conference is “really quite necessary,” he said.

At his Texas ranch yesterday, Bush deflected questions about the presidential memo, saying that if the FBI had known about an imminent terrorist attack against America, the agency would have told him.

Still, he added that now might be the time to “revamp and reform our intelligence services.”

To questions about whether the security situation in Iraq was untenable, Bush replied, “The situation in Iraq has improved.”

The president’s upbeat assessment was based on a fragile ceasefire in Fallujah.

The predominantly Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad has been the site of fighting between insurgents and American troops after a mob mutilated the bodies of American security contractors killed in a March 30 ambush.

US troops have killed about 700 insurgents across Iraq since the beginning of the month. About 70 coalition troops – almost all Americans – have died in clashes.

Vice President Dick Cheney said in Tokyo today that the administration soon would announce its choice as US ambassador to the new Iraqi government.

Paul Bremer has been the chief American civilian official in Baghdad, running the provisional authority there.