Bush to Address London Attacks in Speech

WASHINGTON — President Bush is citing the bombings on London's mass transit as fresh evidence of the need to aggressively stamp out terrorism, providing a new urgency to the cause that has been the strong suit of his presidency.

Bush was scheduled to deliver a progress report on the war on terror in a speech Monday at the FBI training academy in Virginia. The White House said the address was planned before last week's bombings in London, but the deadly attacks give his remarks even more significance.

Bush's war against the terrorists is a major reason he won re-election. Yet his approval numbers have slipped in recent months leading up to Monday's speech at Quantico.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president wanted to use the speech to talk about two strategies behind the war on terrorism. The first is a short-term plan to fight the terrorists abroad, and the second is a long-term strategy to bring freedom and prosperity to the places that produce terrorists.

"We will continue to deny the terrorists a safe haven and the support of rogue states," Bush said in his radio address over the weekend. "And at the same time, we will spread the universal values of hope and freedom that will overwhelm their ideology of tyranny and hate. The free world did not seek this conflict, yet we will win it."

Bush was in Scotland for the annual meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations when bombs exploded across London's subway system and on a double-decker bus during the morning rush-hour Thursday, killing dozens and wounding hundreds more. A little-known group claiming links to the al-Qaida terrorist network claimed responsibility.

"The war on terror goes on," Bush told reporters hours after the explosions.

Some have questioned whether Bush's strategy to fight the terrorists abroad so "we do not have to face them at home" is working when terrorists are planting bombs on London's public transportation. Great Britain is a key member of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

Bush's homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, defended the strategy during an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

The war in Iraq, she said, attracts terrorists there "where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London."

Oh yeah?

Many dead in Iraq suicide blast

A suicide bomber has killed more than 20 people who were queuing outside an army recruiting centre in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
The attacker walked into a crowd of young men who were waiting to be signed up by the military and blew himself up.