Bush calls on Americans to step up to foreign,
domestic challenges
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Using his State of the Union address Tuesday to prepare
the nation and world for possible war, President Bush asked the United
Nations to meet Feb. 5 to discuss ``Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world''
and listen to Secretary of State Colin Powell deliver evidence of how
Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Directly addressing the reluctance expressed by key allies about moving
quickly, Bush promised continued consultations - but vowed that the United
States will not be deterred from forcing Saddam to give up his weapons.
``America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country,
our friends and our allies,'' he said.
Bush's 59-minute, nationally televised address was billed by White House
officials as having a heavy tilt toward domestic concerns such as the
economy and health care - which most of the first half did.
He pushed his $670 billion tax cut plan as just the thing to wake up the
long-somnolent economy.
He said this was the year that Congress had to upgrade Medicare by adding
a prescription drug benefit for seniors.
And he plugged smaller-scale programs and pet concerns, such as helping
children left behind by parents in jail and reining in medical malpractice
insurance by limiting the punitive damages that can be awarded by courts.
Bush ticked off multiple successes in battling terrorism and apprehending
terrorists at home and abroad. He proclaimed, ``The war goes on and we
are winning.''
But Iraq dominated the last half of the speech, and the president captured
international attention by notching up pressure not just on Saddam but
on the United Nations. He demanded that the U.N. Security Council meet
next week to conclude what the United States has already: that Saddam
``has shown utter contempt for the United Nations and for the opinion
of the world.''
Seeking peace
Bush repeated his promise that war would be a last resort and ended his
speech by stressing the profound moral burden that waging war places on
any president.
``This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread
the days of mourning that always come,'' Bush said.
``We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended,''
he added. ``A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace
at all.''
There was no explicit repeat of the attack on Iraq, Iran and North Korea
as an ``axis of evil,'' but he condemned the records of each nation separately.
The initial reaction to Bush’s strong statements on Iraq had to please
the administration.
A USA TODAY-CNN-Gallup Poll of 440 people who watched the speech showed
67 percent believed Bush had made a persuasive case while 30 percent said
he had not. That compared with 47 percent who said he had made a convincing
case to 52 percent who said he did not in a similar poll taken in the
days leading up to the speech. The new survey had a margin of error of
plus or minus 5 percentage points.
With the nation at the brink of war, the speech took on a more somber
mood, with few of the raucous partisan whistles and catcalls that have
been common in past addresses.
Bush was interrupted 76 times by applause, with the broadest signs of
support for the president's promises for affordable health care, promoting
hydrogen-powered automobiles and fighting the spread of AIDS in Africa
and the Caribbean.
The House chamber grew still as Bush used low, earnest tones to outline
the danger posed to the United States by Iraq.
Republicans jumped to their feet when Bush vowed to strike if Saddam failed
to disarm, but many Democrats did not - reflecting the divisions in Congress
and the serious doubts held by many.
However, there was no such reluctance when Bush told members of the armed
forces, "You believe in America, and America believes in you."
That line received the most sustained applause of the evening.
There was no explicit repeat of the attack on Iraq, Iran and North Korea
as an “axis of evil,” but he condemned the records of each nation
separately.
The president described Saddam as a man who runs a regime in which children
are tortured while their parents watch, and political prisoners are burned
with hot irons, mutilated with electric drills or have their tongues cut
out.
"If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning," he said. "And
tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your
enemy is not surrounding your country - your enemy is ruling your country."
Bush accused North Korea of resuming its nuclear weapons program to blackmail
the United States and other countries and said Washington was working
with other countries in the region ``to find a peaceful solution.''
He condemned Iran's government for repressing its people, pursuing weapons
of mass destruction and supporting terror.
Bush sought to address the seeming contradiction of using diplomacy with
a state on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons and gathering a huge
military force against a weaker state that is clearly much further from
producing nuclear arms.
``Different threats require different strategies,'' he said.
``Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula,
and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator
with a history of aggression ... will not be permitted to dominate a vital
region and threaten the United States,'' Bush proclaimed.
With this speech, Bush found himself in far trickier territory than he
did when he assessed the state of the union one year ago.
His approval ratings have dipped, but are still at respectable levels.
Global sympathy expressed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has dropped
away as resentment about his approach to Iraq has grown.
Tax-cut critics
In the official Democratic response, Washington Gov. Gary Locke cautioned
that to be strong abroad, America must be strong at home.
"And today, in too many ways, our country is headed in the wrong
direction."
He called Bush's economic stimulus plan "upside down economics"
that would "create huge, permanent deficits that will raise interest
rates, stifle growth, hinder homeownership and cut off the avenues of
opportunity that have let so many work themselves up from poverty."
Democrats - who lost the Senate last fall - have abandoned their reluctance
to criticize Bush on the previously sacrosanct issues of the war on terrorism
and national security.
Democratic leaders have launched a three-day attack on Bush in connection
with the State of the Union speech, all aimed at accusing Bush of repeatedly
making appealing promises that he rarely keeps.
``On point after point, the president has promised and he has failed to
deliver. And with each failure, the credibility gap grows,'' said Senate
Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., pointing to education, the economy,
the war on terrorism and efforts to shore up homeland defense.
Republicans were predictably enthused.
New Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who faces the difficult
task of shepherding Bush’s program through a nearly evenly divided
Senate, said the president had helped his cause.
“The president challenged us to enact an agenda as ambitious as this
nation is great,” Frist said.
Bush ignored the drumbeat of criticism of his new tax cut plans from Democrats,
and some Republicans, as inappropriately large for a time of war and strained
budgets.
He defended his proposal to accelerate parts of the tax cut that Congress
passed in 2001 that would not take effect until later in the decade as
a needed jolt. ``If this tax relief is good for Americans three or five
or seven years from now, it is even better for Americans today,'' he said.
The most criticized part of his economic package is the elimination of
most taxes on stock dividends, derided by many as a gift to the rich.
Bush called the move a matter of fairness, because dividends are taxed
first as profit to a business and again when paid to investors. He said
his plan will ``boost investor confidence and ... help the nearly 10 million
seniors who received dividend income.''
Bush also:
— Ordered the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security
to combine their ``threat information'' under one roof in a ``terrorist
Threat Integration Center.''
— Asked Congress to set up a $6 billion ``Project Bioshield'' to make vaccines against a variety of possible biological threats, including anthrax, Ebola and plague, available to Americans. ``We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons,'' he said.
— Proposed a $450 million program to provide mentors to a million disadvantaged children and children whose parents are incarcerated.
— Called for creating a $600 million program to put 300,000 drug addicts in treatment programs over the next three years.
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