Bush: US must finish job in Iraq to honor the fallen
22 Aug 2005 21:03:30 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Caren Bohan

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug 22 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, speaking amid protests and growing public unease over Iraq, said on Monday America owed it to the more than 1,800 U.S. soldiers killed there to complete the mission, which he linked with the campaign against terrorism.

In a speech to a convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush again linked the Iraq war with efforts to protect the United States from another Sept. 11-style attack -- a link critics say is an attempt to shift the justification for war.

"Iraq is a central front in the war on terror," Bush said. "It is a vital part of our mission."

In his speech, Bush, who rarely gives specific numbers for the death toll, said a total of 1,864 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq and 223 in Afghanistan and acknowledged the grief faced by their families.

But he added, "We owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for. We'll honor their sacrifice by staying on the offensive against the terrorists and building strong allies in Afghanistan and Iraq that will help us win and fight ... the war on terror."

Critics accuse Bush of shifting his argument for war when he invokes the issue of terrorism to argue for staying the course in Iraq. They point out that a commission investigating the hijacked plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, found no operational ties between those attacks and deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government.

The White House says the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda-linked insurgents shows the link with terrorism, although the U.S. administration concedes many of those militants have come into Iraq from other countries since the U.S. invasion. [edited]

Okay, so who is manipulating the fallen American soldier now?