White House, With Support, Vows to Finish Mission in Iraq

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

*****   The New York Times, April 1, 2004
White House, With Support, Vows to Finish Mission in Iraq
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, April 1 - The White House, buoyed by support from a
Democratic rival and a maverick Republican, vowed today that the
United States would finish its peacekeeping mission in Iraq despite
the grisly attacks on civilian contractors on Wednesday.

"There are certainly areas of Iraq that remain dangerous, but we will
not be deterred by these cowardly, hateful acts," President Bush's
chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said. "This administration will
continue working closely with the coalition and the international
community and the Iraqi people, to help the Iraqi people realize a
better future built on democracy and freedom."

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, President Bush's probable
Democratic rival, issued a statement late Wednesday in which he
expressed sympathy for relatives of the four contractors, as well as
the families of five soldiers killed in Iraq on Wednesday.

"Americans know that all who serve in Iraq - soldier and civilian
alike - do so in an effort to build a better future for Iraqis," Mr.
Kerry said. "These horrific attacks remind us of the viciousness of
the enemies of Iraq's fugtre. United in sadness, we are also united
in our resolve that these enemies will not prevail." . . .

[Representative Nancy J.] Pelosi [of California] said the United
States should persevere, even though "we can't be in denial about
what is happening there in our enthusiasm to talk about progress that
is being made."

"We're not going to run out of town because some people were lawless
in Falluja," she said.

President Bush also got moral support from Senator John S. McCain of
Arizona, a Republican who has never been in lock-step with the
administration and who, indeed, is known to have at best a cordial
relationship with the President.

"As all Americans, I was grieved and horrified," Mr. McCain said on
the "Early Show" on CBS.

But when he was asked whether he could see the United States
withdrawing from Iraq, he replied, "I cannot."

"If we fail there, then Iraq would quickly become a place of training
and exporting of terrorism," Mr. McCain said. "It would be a return
to a chaotic situation of enormous proportions. It actually would
break up ethnically and on religious lines, and we would have an
enormous problem."

And in words that were surely pleasing to the White House, Mr. McCain
said he was sure that, had Saddam Hussein stayed in power, he would
have acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/middleeast/01CND-REAC.html>
*****
--
Yoshie

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