Bush: America Safer Now Than On 9/11

Four days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush says America has learned the lessons of that day and has addressed the gaps in U.S. defenses exposed by those attacks.

"Five years after Sept. 11, 2001, America is safer and America is winning the war on terror," the president said Thursday.

It was his fourth terrorism speech in a week, reports .

"America still faces determined enemies — and we will not be safe until those enemies are finally defeated," Mr. Bush said.

That includes success in Iraq, he said, because the outcome there will dictate the outcome in the war on terrorism.

"The free world must support young democracies. The free world must confront the evil of these extremists. The free world must draw full measure of our strength and resources to prevail," Mr. Bush declared.

Addressing an audience assembled by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Bush spoke of the steps government has taken since Sept. 11, including his controversial program of wiretapping phone calls to and from suspected terrorists. He also called on Congress to quickly pass legislation approving that program.

It was part of a series of outings that will continue through events commemorating Sept. 11 anniversary and culminating in a Sept. 19 address to the United Nations.

With Republican dominance on Capitol Hill at stake in congressional elections now less than two months off, the aim is to restore President Bush's tough-on-terror image by refocusing attention on the broad effort to battle terrorist networks worldwide. Republicans view terrorism and national security as a winning issue for them, while Democrats have sought to make the November balloting a referendum on the unpopular war in Iraq that has dragged down Bush's approval ratings.

Last week, Mr. Bush lumped disparate terrorist and militant groups under one umbrella. Earlier this week he quoted extensively from Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders to remind Americans that the threat from terrorism remains potent. On Wednesday, he defended a previously unacknowledged CIA program to detain some of the worst suspected terrorists and use rough techniques to extract information from them.

In Smyrna, near Atlanta, the president highlighted changes in national security preparedness as a result of the 9/11 attacks to show how new strategies now in place would make it more difficult for terrorists to stage a repeat.

"We learned the lessons of Sept. 11th. We're working to modernize the system. We're working to connect the dots to keep terrorists from hurting America again," Mr. Bush said.

He cited the elimination of Afghanistan as a safe haven for al Qaeda, international finance crackdowns, the new ability of the CIA and FBI to share data and intelligence, a broad restructuring of the intelligence bureaucracy to make sharing information and drawing conclusions easier, consolidated terrorist watch list and immigration changes that make air travel and communities safer, and the passage of the Patriot Act.

The administration has been criticized for moving too slowly to address problems at the nation's ports, where only a small number of cargo containers coming into the country are inspected; at airports, where bomb-detecting equipment is outdated; and in securing nuclear material in places such as Russia.

Mr. Bush said a program to eavesdrop on international communications involving Americans with suspected ties to terrorists has been vital. It has been struck down by a federal district judge, so the president urged Congress to give legal backing to the warrantless wiretapping program operated by the National Security Agency.

The president also repeated his plea for Congress to approve a military tribunal process to try some of the most dangerous suspected terrorists. He announced on Wednesday that key alleged terror leaders had been transferred from a previously secret CIA prison program to the U.S. military's detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The goal is eventual trials, but Congress has to approve a process for doing so after the Supreme Court said Mr. Bush's original plan for tribunals is unconstitutional and violates international laws.

Even some prominent Republicans had balked at some of the rules President Bush wants for trials. But by making suspected terrorists such as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, another suspected Sept. 11 plotter, the poster men for such trials, the White House hopes it will be more difficult for lawmakers to defy the president.

"The sooner the Congress authorizes the military commissions I have called for, the sooner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will receive the justice he deserves," the president said.

While in Georgia, the nation's highest-ranking baseball fan briefly met with the Little League World Series champions' coaches and players on an air strip at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Ga., before leaving aboard Air Force One.

The team, from Columbus, Ga., gave the president a pair of baseballs, team caps and T-shirts signed by the team. On the back of the caps, they wrote "W" and "First Lady."