MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – Slipping in the polls on the eve of an election year, President Bush forcefully defended his handling of postwar Iraq and the economy Thursday in a visit to the nation’s first presidential primary state.
Bush recast his usual road remarks into a tough-talking speech portraying him as a decisive leader who has dealt with challenges arising from terrorist attacks, two wars and an economy that slipped into recession after he took office. “We’ve been through a lot, but we acted, we led,” he said.
In a slap at Democratic critics on his first trip to New Hampshire in nearly a year, Bush said America’s challenges “cannot be met with timid actions or bitter words.”
Bush lost the state’s presidential primary to John McCain three years ago but then won a narrow victory in the November general election. New Hampshire was the only New England state Bush won.
Bush opened the day with a speech at an Air National Guard base in Portsmouth to a military audience, then flew to Manchester to speak with business leaders.
The president also was raising money in Lexington, Ky., for Rep. Ernie Fletcher, who is in a close race with Democrat Ben Chandler for Kentucky governor on Nov. 4.
Unwelcome news awaited Bush in a new poll in New Hampshire. The survey found that 54 percent of adults approve of Bush’s handling of Iraq, down from 64 percent in June. And, for the first time, less than half – 46 percent – said they approved of his handling of the economy, according to the poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
Nationally, Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to the lowest levels of his presidency in recent weeks.
Bush said a president should not be swayed by the polls, and he was applauded when he declared, “I came to this office to confront problems directly and forcefully, not to pass them on to other presidents and other generations.”
Responding to Bush’s remarks, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said, “I don’t think the American people want spin. I think they want results, and I think that the only way we’re going to get results is if we change the approach the administration has used from the very beginning. And that’s going to take more than just another speech.”
Bush acknowledged the economy was still struggling and said New Hampshire had lost one out of five of its manufacturing jobs. But on the other hand, he said his proposals had resulted in tax cuts for 112,000 small business owners in the state and 124,000 families had benefited from an increase in the child tax credit.
He urged Congress to make his tax cuts permanent rather than allow them to expire, as now planned.
Bush talked about progress in Iraq on another day of violence and bloodshed in there. A 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack outside Baghdad. Separately, a suicide car bomber detonated an explosive at a police station, killing eight people and injuring 28.
Six months after the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down, Bush cautioned that “there is a temptation to think the danger has passed.” He ticked off terrorist attacks that have taken place around the world since Sept. 11, 2001, and said, “We must fight this war until the work is done.”
He defended his decision to go to war even though the United States has not been able to find any of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that he had cited as a justification for confronting Iraq. He said investigators had found evidence “of a clandestine network of biological laboratories” and “advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles.”
“It is undeniable that Saddam Hussein was a deceiver and a danger,” Bush said. “There is only one decent and humane reaction to the fall of Saddam Hussein: good riddance.”
Bush rejected criticism that progress is too slow in Iraq, saying Americans are not hearing the real story. “It’s a lot better than you probably think,” the president said, adding that people who have been in Iraq are stunned by the stories at home.
He said schools and hospitals are reopening, children are getting immunizations and water and electricity are coming back. “Life is getting better,” he said.
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