US: President George Bush was last night expected to use his annual State of the Union address to reassure the American public about the course of the war in Iraq and to please key groups of voters with modest initiatives on domestic issues such as health care.
The speech came as an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed the president's approval rating at just 39 per cent, with 57 per cent of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track.
The poll showed that two out of three Americans want most US troops to withdraw from Iraq during 2006 and 56 per cent saying they were "extremely concerned" or "quite concerned" about Mr Bush's decision to allow US security agencies to listen to American citizens' phone calls without a warrant.
The president was expected to warn Iran against developing nuclear weapons and to call on Hamas to disarm as a prerequisite for becoming a partner for peace in the Middle East. He was not expected to unveil any sweeping new domestic initiatives following the collapse of the keynote domestic plan of his second term - an attempt to reform America's state pension system.
Mr Bush was expected to call for more exploration of alternatives to oil as an energy source and perhaps to call for more use of nuclear power. He was also expected to address the rising cost of health care by giving tax breaks to Americans without employer-provided health insurance and encouraging "portable" health care plans.
The president was expected to argue that his programme to secretly eavesdrop on communications between people in the United States and suspected terrorists overseas is not only legal, but necessary and to urge Congress to renew the controversial portions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act, which are to expire on Friday but are being blocked by legislators who insist on new privacy safeguards.
Mr Bush's fifth State of the Union address comes as the US enters a mid-term election year that will see one third of Senate seats and all seats in the House of Representatives up for re-election. The president will embark on a post-speech tour of parts of the US today in an attempt to drive home his message that the country is on the right track under his leadership.