SFG: Bush defends war - President uses Sept. 11 address to argue that America's safety 'depends on the outcome of the battle in Baghdad'

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Bush defends war in partisan speech - President uses Sept. 11 address to argue that America's safety 'depends on the outcome of the battle in Baghdad'

President Bush diverted Monday night from the unifying themes that had marked remembrances of the Sept. 11 attack, using the occasion to defend his administration's aggressive surveillance tactics and warn against abandoning the increasingly divisive war in Iraq.

What distinguished the speech from previous Sept. 11 commemorations was Bush's decision to go beyond the resolve and sorrow that bind most Americans and promote the most controversial elements of what he describes as a "war on terror." Bush defended once-secret programs to monitor some Americans' phone calls and bank records, which have been assailed by civil libertarians, calling the efforts consistent with his promise immediately after the 2001 attacks "to use every element of national power to fight the terrorists wherever we find them." And he spent a substantial portion of the speech connecting 9/11 to the 3-year-old war in Iraq, two events that have now claimed roughly the same number of American lives. "The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad," Bush said.