Bush: Work In Iraq Has Been Hard; Needed For Peace

By JENNIFER LOVEN

AP White House Correspondent

BAGHDAD (AP) – His legacy forever linked to an unpopular war, President George W. Bush flew under intense security to Iraq on Sunday and called the nearly six-year conflict hard but necessary to protect the United States and give Iraqis hope.

Bush visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it.

At the end of nearly two hours of meetings at an ornate, marble-floored Salam Palace along the shores of the Tigris River, Bush defended the 2003 invasion and occupation.

“The work hasn’t been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope and world peace,” the president said. “I’m just so grateful I had the chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends.”

The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence in a nation still riven by ethnic strife and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

But in many ways, the unannounced trip was a victory lap without a clear victory. Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a war that is intensely disliked across the globe.

More than 4,209 members of the U.S. military have died in the conflict, which has cost U.S. taxpayers $576 billion since it began five years and nine months ago.

Polls show most Americans believe the U.S. erred in invading Iraq in 2003. Bush ordered the nation into war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq while citing intelligence claiming the Mideast nation harbored weapons of mass destruction.

The weapons were never found, the intelligence was discredited, Bush’s credibility with U.S. voters plummeted and Saddam was captured and executed.

For Bush, the war is the issue around which both he and the country defined his two terms in office. He saw the invasion and continuing fight as a necessary action to protect Americans and fight terrorism.

Though his decision won support at first, the public now has largely decided that the U.S. needs to get out of Iraq.

Air Force One, the president’s distinctive powder blue-and-white jetliner, landed at Baghdad International Airport in the afternoon local time after a secretive Saturday night departure from Washington.

In a sign of security gains in this war zone, Bush received a formal arrival ceremony – a flourish absent in his three earlier trips.

Bush soon began a rapid-fire series of meetings with top Iraqi leaders. He met first with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the country’s two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashemi and Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

“I’ve known these men for a long time and I’ve come to admire them for their courage and their determination to succeed,” Bush said at the Salam as the sun set outside and darkness fell over Baghdad.

Talabani called Bush “our great friend,” who “helped to liberate” Iraq.

Later, Bush’s motorcade pulled out the heavily fortified Green Zone and crossed over the Tigris so he could meet Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the prime minister’s palace.

A huge orange moon hung low over the horizon as Bush’s was ferried quickly through the city.

The two leaders sat down together for probably the last time in person in these roles. They planned a ceremonial signing of the security agreement – a “remarkable document,” according to Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.

He said the pact was unique in the Arab world because it was publicly debated, discussed and adopted by an elected parliament.

Hadley said the trip proved that the U.S.-Iraq relationship was changing “with Iraqis rightfully exercising greater sovereignty” and the U.S. “in an increasingly subordinate role.”

The Bush administration and even White House critics credit last year’s military buildup with the security gains in Iraq. Last month, attacks fell to the lowest monthly level since the war began in 2003.

Still, it’s unclear what will happen when the U.S. troops leave. While violence has slowed in Iraq, attacks continue, especially in the north. At least 55 people were killed Thursday in a suicide bombing in a restaurant near Kirkuk.

It was Bush’s last trip to the war zone before Obama takes office Jan. 20. Obama won an election largely viewed as a referendum on Bush, who has endured low approval ratings because of the war and more recently, the U.S. recession.

Obama, a Democrat, has promised he will bring all U.S. combat troops back home from Iraq a little over a year into his term, as long as commanders agree a withdrawal would not endanger American personnel or Iraq’s security.

Obama has said that on his first day as president, he will summon the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the White House and give them a new mission: responsibly ending the war.

Obama has said the drawdown in Iraq would allow him to shift troops and bolster the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Commanders there want at least 20,000 more forces, but cannot get them unless some leave Iraq.

The trip was conducted under heavy security and a strict cloak of secrecy. People who made the 10 1/2-hour trip with the president agreed to tell almost no one about the plans, and the White House released false schedules detailing activities planned for Bush in Washington on Sunday.

The new U.S.-Iraqi security pact, which goes into effect next month, replaces a U.N. mandate that gives the U.S.-led coalition broad powers to conduct military operations and detain people without charge if they were believed to pose a security threat.

The bilateral agreement changes some of those terms and calls for all American troops to be withdrawn by the end of 2011, in two stages.

The first stage begins next year, when U.S. troops pull back from Baghdad and other Iraqi cities by the end of June.

Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Saturday that even after that summer deadline, some U.S. troops will remain in Iraqi cities.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)