Dubya asks for more green, this time almost 1/5 of our current deficit, for the current fiscal year. 149 KIA since the cessetation of major operations, 131 prior. Didn't someone tell Messuir Bush that colonies are very expensive, and never work out the way the colonizers want them to?
Bush vows to defeat Iraq resistance
US President George W Bush has told the American people that Iraq is "now the central front" in a global war against terrorism, and vowed to bring security to the country.
"Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there, and there they must be defeated. This will take time, and require sacrifice," said Mr Bush in a televised address.
"Yet we will do whatever is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom, and to make our own nation more secure."
Mr Bush said he had asked Congress for $87bn to fund the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq and similar efforts in Afghanistan - a sum correspondents describe as huge, coming as it does amid growing public dissatisfaction at the US role in Iraq.
The president has been facing a barrage of domestic criticism following the deaths of dozens of US soldiers in guerrilla-style attacks in the wake of the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The BBC's Michael Buchanan in Washington says the speech was aimed at bolstering public opinion in America amid accusations that Mr Bush has failed to devise or explain a workable post-war plan for Iraq.
'Questions unanswered'
Mr Bush insisted that his administration's strategy in Iraq had three objectives:
* "Destroying the terrorists"
* "Enlisting the support of other nations for a free Iraq"
* "And helping Iraqis assume responsibility for their own defence and their own future."
But opposition Democrats have said the speech failed to set out a course that will steer Iraq towards stability.
"Lets be clear - a 15-minute speech does not make up for 15 months of misleading the American people on why we should go to war against Iraq or 15 weeks of mismanaging the reconstruction effort since we have been there," presidential hopeful Howard Dean said.
UN involvement
The Bush administration has come under pressure from opposition politicians to enlist the international community to help shoulder the burden of policing Iraq.
President Bush
Bush said the US had a proud history of rebuilding nations
Washington has now presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council under which it hopes to secure a multinational force for Iraq and boost UN involvement in the country's political future.
But the draft resolution has already been criticised by France, Germany and Russia - countries which also opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq - who complain it does not give the UN or the Iraqi people enough power.
Mr Bush said that he recognised not all of America's allies had supported the invasion, "yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties".
Referring to last month's devastating bomb attack on the UN headquarters in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Mr Bush said: "Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilised world and opposing them must be the cause of the civilised world.
World Trade Center wreckage
The speech comes as Americans prepare to remember the anniversary of 11 September
"Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation."
However, Mr Bush gave assurances that the Iraqi people would also play a central role:
"They must rise to the responsibilities of a free people, and secure the blessings of their own liberty."
In the latest indication of the instability in Iraq, US forces in the central city of Najaf say Shia Muslim militias there must lay down their weapons or face being disarmed, by force if necessary.
The militias have seized control of the city in the wake of last month's massive car bombing which killed leading Shia cleric Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim and more than 100 others.
'Strategic goal'
Mr Bush said the recent string of deadly bombings in Iraq and ongoing attacks against US troops were designed to intimidate.
"There is more at work in these attacks than blind rage. The terrorists have a strategic goal. They want us to leave Iraq before our work is done. They want to shake the will of the civilised world," he said.
The speech comes just days before the second anniversary of the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington, in the aftermath of which Mr Bush announced the launch of a war on terrorism.
"Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places," Mr Bush said as he appealed for patience from the American people.
Ruling out any premature withdrawal from Iraq, Mr Bush warned that the Middle East could "either become a place of progress and peace, or it will be an exporter of violence and terror that takes more lives in America and in other free nations".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3088772.stm