Citing security details he declassified for his speech, Bush described Al Qaeda's burgeoning operation in Iraq as a direct threat to the United States. He accused critics in Congress of misleading the American public by suggesting otherwise.
"That's like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun and saying, 'He's probably just there to cash a check,' " Bush told troops at the base.
The president is facing highly skeptical audiences. The public has largely lost faith in the war, Congress is weighing ways to end it, and international partners have fading memories of the 2001 attacks against the United States. Six years later, terrorist leader Osama bin Laden remains at large.
"The president's claim that the war in Iraq is protecting us from Al Qaeda is as misguided and dangerous as the conclusions that drove us to Iraq in the first place," said Senate majority leader Harry Reid. "The fact is that our continued flawed strategy in Iraq is emboldening and unifying Al Qaeda, both in that country and elsewhere."
Senator John F. Kerry said Bush "is trying to scare the American people into believing that Al Qaeda is the rationale for continuing the war in Iraq." But the Massachusetts Democrat said Bush presented no new evidence to back that up, and added: "The president is picking the wrong rationale for this war. Al Qaeda is not the principal killer of American forces in Iraq."
Al Qaeda, led by bin Laden, orchestrated the terrorist strikes on the United States by turning hijacked airplanes into killing machines. Now a fresh intelligence estimate warns that the United States is in a heightened threat environment, mainly from Al Qaeda. The terrorist group is seizing upon its affiliate, Al Qaeda in Iraq, to recruit members and organize attacks, the report found.
Al Qaeda had no active cells in Iraq when the United States invaded in March 2003, and its operation there is much larger now than before the war, US intelligence officers say. The war has turned into a valuable recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, senior intelligence officials concede. Bush denied that the war triggered Al Qaeda's operations in Iraq. He cited intelligence that:
Al Qaeda in Iraq was founded not by an Iraqi but by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who had deep relations with Al Qaeda leaders. The president said Zarqawi, who was killed by US forces last year, set up operations with terrorist associates in Iraq long before US-led forces arrived, and that in the violence and instability after Saddam Hussein's fall, was able to expand the "size, scope, and lethality" of his operation. Zarqawi formally joined Al Qaeda in 2004 and pledged allegiance to bin Laden, he said.
The merger gave Al Qaeda senior leadership "a foothold in Iraq to extend its geographic presence and to plot external operations and to tout the centrality of the jihad in Iraq to solicit direct monetary support elsewhere."
