Senate Ready To Up War Aid

Despite waning public support and political differences with the administration, the Senate is ready to give President Bush $50 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The money is part of a $445 billion military spending bill for the budget year that began Oct. 1. Funding for wars since Sept. 11, 2001 has now exceeded $350 billion.

Senate GOP leaders had hoped to vote on the bill Thursday so they could adjourn for a 10-day recess, but it was held up by Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. She wants $1 billion already approved for Hurricane Katrina relief to be spent on public employee salaries.

The Senate's impending decision followed Mr. Bush's speech on Iraq Thursday in which he accused Islamic militants of seeking to "enslave whole nations and intimidate the world" and charged they have made Iraq their main front.

"The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia," Mr. Bush said in a speech before the National Endowment for Democracy.

Mr. Bush's speech came as a new CBS News Poll finds an American public increasingly pessimistic about the war in Iraq and the president.

The advance billing of the address as a direct response to war critics reflects increasing White House sensitivity to public opinion on a war that has taken more than 1,900 American lives, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer.

Mr. Bush likened the ideology of Islamic militants to communism. And he said they are being "aided by elements of the Arab news media that incites hatred and anti-Semitism."

"Against such an enemy, there's only one effective response: We never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory," Mr. Bush declared.

Mr. Bush spoke as recent polls show declining American support for the war that has thus far claimed more than 1,940 members of the U.S. military. His Iraq policy faces a crucial test in Iraq's Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution, a vote that Mr. Bush has said terrorists will try to derail.

"We are facing a radical ideology with immeasurable objectives to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world," he said.

Mr. Bush said the terrorists are aided by corrupt charities that direct money to terrorist activities and nations, such as Syria and Iran, calling them "allies of convenience" that back terrorists.

He said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 plots by the al Qaeda terror network in the four years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks – three of them in the United States – and he warned other nations not to support or harbor groups with al Qaeda ties.

"The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in the war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror," he said.

"Our commitment is clear — we will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken and their leaders held to account for their acts of murder," Mr. Bush said.

Countering claims that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is fueling radicalism, Mr. Bush noted that American troops were not there on Sept. 11, 2001. He said Russia did not support the military action in Iraq, yet a terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, left more than 300 schoolchildren dead in 2004.

Democrats were unimpressed by the president's remarks. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada charged Mr. Bush had again failed to lay out a strategy for success that would allow U.S. troops to come home.

"Instead, the president continued to falsely assert there is a link between the war in Iraq and the tragedy of September 11th, a link that did not and does not exist," Reid said. "The truth is the Administration's mishandling of the war in Iraq has made us less safe and Iraq risks becoming what it was not before the war: a training ground for terrorists."

The president said that no one should estimate the difficulties ahead, nor should anyone be pessimistic about U.S. efforts to battle terrorism.

"With every random bombing. And with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters," Mr. Bush said. "They are murderers at war with the Iraqi people themselves."

The president also took on war critics in the United States.

"There's always a temptation in the middle of a long struggle to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder," he said.

But Mr. Bush vowed to not to retreat from Iraq or from the broader war on terrorism. "We will keep our nerve and we will win that victory," he said.