Bush To Defend Iraq Policy

In his first speech from the Oval Office since announcing the invasion of Iraq, President Bush delivers an address to the nation tonight to point the way forward in Iraq, according to aides.

(CBS will broadcast the speech live at 9 p.m. eastern time. Bob Schieffer will anchor from Washington.)

The speech comes at a time when the president has sparked a national furor over security versus civil liberties. Bush acknowledged Saturday that on more than 30 occasions he secretly authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans and other residents and defiantly vowed to continue such domestic eavesdropping "for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups."

Bush's unusually frank admission, made in his weekly radio address, came amid a bipartisan uproar in Congress after The New York Times revealed the secret NSA program in Friday's editions.

Bush said the report relied on unauthorized disclosure of classified information that "damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk." Disclosure of the program helped generate opposition to a renewal of the Patriot Act in the Senate on Friday.

"The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time," Bush said in a rare live address. "And the activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad."

He said congressional leaders have been apprised of the secret order "more than a dozen times."

First Amendment legal expert Floyd Abrams told CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston the president is attempting to mitigate his sidestepping of Congress by saying he had informed some lawmakers.

"It is mitigated in the sense that Congress was not completely uninformed," Abrams said. "As a legal matter though, what the president has authorized 30 times may have been illegal 30 times."

Read excerpts of Pinkston's interview with Abrams here.

The New York Times account said the NSA secretly monitored, without court approval, international phone calls and e-mail messages that originated in the United States. The newspaper said the NSA eavesdropped on hundreds and perhaps thousands of U.S. citizens and other U.S. residents or tourists.

The president ordered the NSA to act without approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, a special federal tribunal created in 1978 to authorize domestic counterterrorism operations.

"I don't understand why that wasn't used," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. "Congress has clearly provided for what was going on. It seems to be that that procedure should have been followed.

"It's important not to view that activity in a vacuum," he said. "There is a whole number of actions that the president has taken premised on unilateral executive authority that many observers find problematic."

Stunned Democrats quickly hit back, reports CBS News correspondent Joie Chen.

"He is President George Bush not King George Bush," Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., told Chen. "He needs to back off and show respect for our system which is Congress makes the laws."

Bush supporters fell in line behind the president.

"This is war, not a tea party," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., declared on the House floor Saturday. "The president is doing the right thing and we need to support him."

Bush said he acted within the Constitution and said he drew his authority from his role as commander in chief and from Congress' Joint Authorization for the Use of Military Force, passed days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The resolution gave the president broad authority to hunt down the Sept. 11 terrorists and to prevent further terrorist attacks.

The resolution, passed on Sept. 14, 2001, states: "... the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

Bush said intelligence officials involved in the secret program are specially trained. He said his orders are reviewed approximately every 45 days and must be approved by the attorney general and his chief White House counsel.

"Each review is based on a fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government and the threat of catastrophic damage to our homeland," he said.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the group was shocked by the disclosure.

"We're finding out that the president has possibly authorized the breaking of the law so that our government can eavesdrop on American citizens?" Fredrickson told CBS Radio News. "We're still trying to process it, but it's truly amazing."

Bush criticized senators who blocked a vote Friday on a renewal of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law that is set to expire on Dec. 31. The law, passed a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, made it easier for the FBI and CIA to share intelligence and gave federal authorities more power to conduct secret searches, tap phone calls, monitor e-mails and seize personal records ranging from financial documents to library lending lists.