WP: Bush Team Stands Firm on Iraq Policy

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Cheney Defends U.S. Actions In Bid to Revive Public Support

By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus

Monday, September 15, 2003; Page A01

Vice President Cheney, keynoting an aggressive defense by the Bush administration of its Iraq policy, rejected the full range of criticism of U.S. actions in Iraq and said there is no reason to "think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed."

In a rare television interview yesterday, Cheney expanded on an effort by President Bush and top aides to argue that there should be no further changes in Iraq policy despite bipartisan and international calls for different approaches. He declared "major success, major progress" in Iraq, said most of the country is "stable and quiet" and asserted that Americans are viewed as "liberators" there.

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Cheney's rare appearance -- he almost never takes questions from reporters and had not granted such a television interview in six months -- comes as the public is expressing less faith in Bush and his Iraq policies. Cheney added his voice to other administration officials such as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Bush himself to revive public support, weakened by rising fatalities, a failure to find illegal weapons stockpiles in Iraq and a higher-than-expected request from Bush for an additional $87 billion for military operations and rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Administration officials said they think that any acknowledgment of a mistake only encourages critics, as when Bush included a suspect allegation in his State of the Union address that Hussein sought nuclear material in Africa -- despite CIA warnings not to cite the information. Cheney's vigorous defense of the administration's actions went beyond the current debate to Bush's record on jobs, tax cuts and the deficit. He said it would be a "serious mistake" to freeze the tax cuts for the top 1 percent of earners to pay for the Iraq war, as some Democrats have urged.

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Cheney was less forthcoming when asked about Saudi Arabia's ties to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 hijackers. "I don't want to speculate," he said, adding that Sept. 11 is "over with now, it's done, it's history and we can put it behind us."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10734-2003Sep14.html