Stand firm, Bush urges

WASHINGTON -- Faced with wavering allies and a divided America, President Bush on Friday urged all to stand firm against terrorism in Iraq and around the globe. A visit to the bedsides of wounded soldiers underscored the one-year toll of 570 American deaths in Iraq.

The White House invited the ambassadors of 84 countries involved in the U.S.-led war on terror to the White House for Bush's call for resolve.

"We are the nations that have recognized the threat of terrorism, and we are the nations that will defeat that threat," the president said in a speech marking the one-year anniversary of his launch of the invasion of Iraq.

Hoping to emphasize unity over division, Bush recited six long lists in the 24-minute address of countries that have suffered terrorist attacks or been involved in the response to them. He allowed no room for hesitation, laying down what he called an inescapable choice between standing with or against the U.S.-led anti-terror battle.

"There is no neutral ground -- no neutral ground -- in the fight between civilization and terror," the president said. "There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy. Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations."

Secretary of State Colin Powell reinforced Bush's warning from Baghdad, where he met with Iraqis, coalition leaders and U.S. troops.

"This is not the time to say, 'Let's stop what we're doing and pull back,"' he said. "It's time to redouble our efforts ... and not run and hide and think it won't come and get us."

Much of Bush's speech was devoted to defending the war in Iraq. He said the toppling of Saddam Hussein removed a source of violence and instability in the Middle East, and he linked Iraq to the broader war on terror, including the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"We've set out to encourage reform and democracy in the greater Middle East as the alternatives to fanaticism, resentment and terror," he said.

After the speech, Bush and first lady Laura Bush went to Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit with the "wounded who have made a decision to sacrifice for the nation's security." The hospital has treated scores of soldiers wounded in Iraq.

French speak up

The French foreign minister, meanwhile, said the Iraq war made the world more dangerous, not less, by causing an upswing in terrorism. France and Germany had led the opposition to Bush's call for war.

"Terrorism didn't exist in Iraq before," Dominique de Villepin told Le Monde newspaper. "Today, it is one of the world's principal sources of world terrorism."

The "coalition of the willing" that the administration cites in Iraq -- three dozen nations contributing military forces to the U.S.-dominated mission there -- also showed some cracks.

South Korea announced Friday it would not send its troops to the area of Iraq that U.S. commanders had requested. Although the Defense Ministry said it would position them elsewhere in Iraq, the shift could pose a problem for Pentagon planners.

Although Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told Bush on Friday his country's 2,400 troops would stay put in south-central Iraq, that promise came a day after he said his country had been misled before the war over Saddam's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Though the weapons were a primary reason Bush gave for going to war, none has been found and they rated just 16 words of 2,314 in Bush's address.

At home, polls of the American voting public offer other reasons for Bush to endeavor to connect his actions in Iraq to the larger war on terror. While he receives the support of about two-thirds of those surveyed for his anti-terror campaign, Bush has about as many detractors on his Iraq policies as backers.

Sen. John Kerry, his Democratic presidential rival, has sought to seize on those doubts. Speaking on behalf of Kerry, former national security adviser Sandy Berger acknowledged that "Saddam is gone and that is unreservedly good."

"But all of this has come at a very heavy price -- there is uncertainty as far as the eye can see," he said, faulting Bush for going to war without significant allied contributions and without a clear plan or sufficient troops for a postwar Iraq.

"It's increasingly clear that how we conducted the war in Iraq -- hurried along unprepared for the day after -- has made the terrorism problem more difficult," Berger said. "It took our focus off al-Qaida. It became a rallying point for jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere and we've been losing allies, not gaining them."

While Bush acknowledged the rift among allies and the continued presence of "violent thugs and murderers in Iraq," he spent much more time projecting confidence.

"Today, as Iraqis join the free peoples of the world, we mark a turning point for the Middle East and a crucial advance for human liberty," he said. "We will not fail the Iraqi people, who have placed their trust in us."