Bush will address the American Legion convention today and attend a fund-raiser for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, at the Grand America Hotel before leaving the state at noon. He will begin the day with a private visit to the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Even before Air Force One touched down, protests and rallies both supporting and opposing the administration and its policies on the war on terror were held. An anti-war rally was led by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson.

The president told reporters Wednesday during an earlier stop in Little Rock, Ark., that his speeches will be "about the future of this country, and they're speeches to make it clear that if we retreat before the job is done, this nation would become even more in jeopardy."

Bush also said there that the speeches shouldn't be politicized. "We have a duty in this country to defeat terrorists. That's why we'll stay on the offense and bring them to justice before they hurt us, and that's why we'll work to spread liberty in order to spread the peace."

According to White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino, his speech in Salt Lake City "will put the violence that Americans are seeing on their TV screens and reading in their papers into a larger context" while acknowledging "that these are unsettling times in Iraq."

His address to the military veterans will mark the start of a series of speeches on the global war on terrorism, she said, that will continue through the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and a Sept. 19 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Bush follows two top administration officials on the American Legion agenda. Both Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to convention delegates on Tuesday, offering a similar message of support for the war.

The president chose one of the most Republican states in the nation to begin what will be his third set of speeches on the war in less than a year. While his approval rating has stayed strong in Utah, it was at just 33 percent nationwide in an August Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

Twice as many Utahns — 66 percent — supported Bush in the most recent Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll on the president's approval rating. When the survey was taken last month, only Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Texas were giving Bush a favorable rating.

Bush, who won Utah by the largest margin of any state in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, chose the state a year ago to make another speech in favor of the war, before the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Three hours before Bush arrived, a few hundred supporters gathered to voice their support for the president at Washington Square, the same location where earlier in the day thousands protested against Bush's policies.