Bush expounds on bin Laden

WASHINGTON — Quoting repeatedly from Osama bin Laden, President Bush said Tuesday that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would fulfill the terrorist leader's wishes and propel him into a more powerful global threat in the mold of Adolf Hitler.

With two months until an Election Day that hinges largely on national security, Bush laid out bin Laden's vision in detail, including new revelations from previously unreported documents. Voters were never more united behind the president than in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and his speech was designed to convince Americans that the threat has not faded five years later.

Democrats have been increasing their criticism of the president's policies in Iraq as the congressional elections approach, with the latest salvo coming in a letter Monday that suggested he fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The White House rejected the idea, both in a written response from chief of staff Joshua Bolten and in a lengthy verbal rebuttal from spokesman Tony Snow.

"It's not going to happen," Snow said. "Creating Don Rumsfeld as a bogeyman may make for good politics but would make for very lousy strategy at this time."

To make the administration's strategy more clear, the White House on Tuesday published a 23-page booklet called "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," which Bush described as an unclassified version of the strategy he's been pursuing since Sept. 11, 2001. The booklet's conclusion: "Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America is safer, but we are not yet safe."

Democrats dismissed Bush's actions as a public relations strategy that avoided real solutions.

"A new glossy strategy paper doesn't take the place of real change that will make our country safer," said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

"If President Bush had unleashed the American military to do the job at Tora Bora four years ago and killed Osama bin Laden, he wouldn't have to quote this barbarian's words today," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Because President Bush lost focus on the killers who attacked us and instead launched a disastrous war in Iraq, today Osama bin Laden and his henchmen still find sanctuary in the no man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they still plot attacks against America."

Bush's speech was the second in a series linked to next week's anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. It was delivered to the Military Officers Association of America in a hotel ballroom filled with U.S. troops, including several injured in the war, and with diplomatic representatives of foreign countries that have suffered terrorist attacks.