To make the administration's strategy clear, the White House published a 23-page booklet yesterday called ``National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," which Bush described as an unclassified version of the strategy he's been pursuing since Sept. 11, 2001. The booklet's conclusion: ``Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America is safer, but we are not yet safe."
Democrats dismissed Bush's actions as a public relations strategy that avoided real solutions.
``A new glossy strategy paper doesn't take the place of real change that will make our country safer," said Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.
``If President Bush had unleashed the American military to do the job at Tora Bora four years ago and killed Osama bin Laden, he wouldn't have to quote this barbarian's words today," said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. ``Because President Bush lost focus on the killers who attacked us and instead launched a disastrous war in Iraq, today Osama bin Laden and his henchmen still find sanctuary in the no man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they still plot attacks against America."
Bush's speech was the second in a series linked to next week's anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
It was delivered to the Military Officers Association of America in a hotel ballroom filled with US troops, including several injured in the war, and with diplomatic representatives of foreign countries that have suffered terrorist attacks.
Bush planned a third speech today from the White House, laying out his plan to change the law so that detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can be tried for crimes before military commissions.
Bush said that history will look favorably on his currently unpopular war strategy.
``History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake," the president said. ``Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"
