Bush Hopeful As War Enters Year Four

President Asks Americans To Look Beyond Images Of Violence

(CBS/AP) 

Mr. Bush was marking this week's third anniversary of the war by making speeches aimed at boosting support for his mission in Iraq, which has drawn increasing public skepticism at home, according to various polls.

Seven in 10 Americans in the latest CBS News poll say Iraq is now in a civil war, and just half expect the U.S. effort will be successful.

"A lot of these Americans who are moving away from the President on the war have held with them for a long time and they're changing because they are disillusioned that we are not winning the war," said CBS News Political Analyst Craig Crawford.

Democrats painted a far more pessimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than the president.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Joe Biden, the lead Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blamed "the dangerous incompetence of this administration" for an "increasingly dismal" outcome, thus far, in Iraq.

Biden, D-Del., said Iraq currently is in what he called a low-grade civil war and may be on the brink of a full-blown civil war when militias fully engage in the violence.

He urged the president to personally fly to other countries to ask foreign leaders to step up so the international community as a whole, and not just the United States, can pressure Iraqi leaders to form a unity government.

Mr. Bush "has to take a political risk," Biden said.

Also in Cleveland, Mr. Bush said his warrantless wiretaps are constitutional and necessary so he's "going to keep doing it," defending the domestic spying program that he said has created quite a "kerfuffle."

The president said after Sept. 11 that he asked security officials if they needed new means of protecting the country and the head of the National Security Agency told him the standard surveillance system was "slow and cumbersome."

Mr. Bush also said that he's willing to use military force to protect Israel from Iran.

"We will use military might to protect our ally Israel," he said, but added that his goal is to use diplomacy.

In Cleveland, as he has in several appearances in recent months, Mr. Bush answered questions from the audience.

Right off the bat, he was challenged on his Christian viewpoint and whether he sees terrorism as a sign of the Apocalypse (he said he never thought of it that way) and how he restores confidence in U.S. leadership after the reasons he gave for going to war with Iraq later proved false.

"Like you, I mean, I asked that very same question: Where'd we go wrong on intelligence?" Mr. Bush said. He said he is working to improve intelligence gathering because "the credibility of our country is essential."

But Mr. Bush also got his share of softballs, too. He was invited back for the Cleveland Hungarian Revolution 50th Anniversary and was complimented on his vision for a nuclear treaty with India and for his "very enlightening" comments about Iraq.