In an address to the nation that combined policy with patriotic fervor, U.S. President Bush argued Sunday that the United States must stay the course in postwar Iraq despite a mounting cost in lives and money.

Four days before the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush said the nation “will spend what is necessary to achieve this essential victory” in the war on terrorism. Bush said he will ask Congress for US$87 billion to pay for military deployment in Iraq, and for reconstruction there and in Afghanistan.

U.S. President George W. Bush poses moments after his televised address to the nation in the Cabinet Room of the White House, September 7, 2003. The president discussed current U.S. military involvement efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan and stressed the importance of those efforts in the region to winning the global war on terror. [Reuters]

“The Middle East will 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,” Bush said.

"The triumph of democracy and tolerance in Iraq, in Afghanistan and beyond would be a grave setback for international terrorism.”

Bush, in a speech from the Cabinet Room, said the United States would not intimidated into retreat by violence.

“The terrorists have cited the examples of Beirut and Somalia, claiming that if you inflict harm on Americans, we will run from a challenge,” Bush said. “In this they are mistaken.”

Bush spoke just days before the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Seeking support for his policy, he said, “The surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans,” he said.

“We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today, so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.”

FIRST MAJOR SPEECH SINCE MAY 1

Bush addressed the nation in his first major speech on Iraq since May 1 when he stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declared an end to major combat operations. Since then, more Americans have died in Iraq than were killed during the war. The overall death count is 287 — 149 since May 1.

The violence — including four major bombing attacks in a month — have raised alarms about Bush’s handling of Iraq. Republicans and Democrats alike have urged Bush to change course and seek more troops and money from other countries.

Questions also have been fueled by the administration’s failure to find any of Saddam Hussein’s alleged illegal weapons or Saddam himself.

Bush said Iraq and the Middle East are critical to winning the global war on terrorism. Bush’s plan for Mideast peace appeared to be unraveling after Saturday’s resignation of Mahmoud Abbas, previously the U.S.-backed Palestinian prime minister.

Bush described Iraq as the central front in the war against terrorism and said that “enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there, and there they must be defeated.

“This will take time and require sacrifice,” he said. “Yet we will do what 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.”

PRESIDENT: TROOPS IN IRAQ ADEQUATE

Bush said the current number of U.S. troops in Iraq — 130,000 — is sufficient but that more foreign troops are needed. He said two multinational divisions, led by Britain and Poland, are serving alongside the United States, and that American commanders have requested a third multinational division.

Some countries have asked for an explicit U.N. peacekeeping authorization, and Bush said Secretary of State Colin Powell would seek a Security Council resolution to authorize deployment of new forces.

Referring to France, Germany and Russia, Bush said that “not all of our friends agreed with our decision [to] ... remove Saddam Hussein from power. Yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties.”

Pressed by Democrats and Republicans alike for a pricetag for Iraq, Bush said he would ask Congress for $87 billion for the next fiscal year. Of that amount, he said, $66 billion would be earmarked for military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

CALL FOR ASSISTANCE

While the United States has shouldered the burden of the effort in Iraq, Bush said other nations will be asked to help. He said Powell would meet with representatives of many countries later this month to seek contributions for rebuilding Afghanistan. Next month, Powell will hold a similar funding conference for Iraq.

“Europe, Japan and states in the Middle East all will benefit from the success of freedom in those two countries, and they should contribute to that success,” Bush said.

Bush said that Iraq was under siege from former Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists who have come to Iraq to pursue their war against the United States.

“We cannot be certain to what extent these groups work together,” the president said. “We do know they have a common goal: reclaiming Iraq for tyranny.”

Public support for Bush’s policy has slipped since the war but has leveled off in the mid 50s, polls show.

Appealing to Americans’ patriotism, Bush said the United States has “done this kind of work before. Following World War II, we lifted up the defeated nations of Japan and Germany and stood with them as they built representative governments. We committed years and resources to this cause.”

THREE OBJECTIVES

He said U.S. strategy in Iraq has three objectives: “destroying the terrorists, enlisting the support of other nations for a free Iraq and helping Iraqis assume responsibility for their own defense and their own future.”

Earlier, Powell said the Bush administration is concerned that members of al-Qaida or other terrorist groups may be heading toward Iraq. “I’m not sure how large these numbers are, how significant the threat is, but we will deal with it in Iraq,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Congress will approve the money needed to support U.S. troops, but that lawmakers want the president to tell them what his “exit strategy” is from Iraq.

Defense Department officials have said U.S. operations are costing about $3.9 billion monthly. That figure excludes indirect expenses such as replacing damaged equipment and munitions expended in combat.

Levin said lawmakers are being told that it will cost $4.5 billion a month for the military — plus reconstruction expenses.

'FOREIGN POLICY ... IN TROUBLE’

Analysts earlier said the speech would be a key test for Bush, whose approval ratings have been dropping in recent polls.

“Bush’s foreign policy is in trouble,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of American government at the University of New Orleans. Brinkley, who called Bush’s speech “a political imperative for a president who wants to win re-election next year,” said the president needed to level with increasingly skeptical Americans about what lies ahead.

Shortly after the speech, NBC’s Norah O’Donnell reported that a growing number of lawmakers, including Republicans, have lately expressed dismay at administration efforts to keep classified the number of U.S. casualties in Iraq. O’Donnell, speaking on MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” said those casualties included more than 1,100 wounded in the conflict to date.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in remarks on Friday, acknowledged that the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan have come with sacrifice.

But he added, “We will stay in Afghanistan and Iraq to make absolutely certain that the job is done before we move on.”

MAJOR POLICY SHIFT

Last week, the Bush administration shifted gears by dropping its resistance to a broader U.N. role in Iraq.

The administration is hoping to secure a new U.N. resolution on Iraq that will clear the way for other countries to contribute troops and cash.

But the initial American proposals were rejected by France and Germany, which opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and want the United States to go further in broadening the U.N.’s role.

Most nations remain wary of sending troops to Iraq under U.S. leadership, and it was left to Washington’s most faithful ally, Britain, once again to take a symbolic lead in responding to the American call for help.

Only 120 soldiers flew in from Cyprus to British-controlled southern Iraq on Sunday. But the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair — mocked by critics as a “poodle” of Bush — is reported to be considering sending up to 3,000 more troops to swell its 11,000-strong contingent.

When he started the war on Iraq in March, Bush warned that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be sold to terrorists. He also said Iraq was a threat because of its support for Middle East terrorist groups. The United States so far has not found any weapons of mass destruction and it has yet to prove a link between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks.

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