One day after saying the war on terror could not be won, President George W. Bush today sought to calm a political storm by asserting he had been less than articulate and that America would prevail.
As he prepared to address the Republican Party convention in New York later this week, Mr Bush found himself on the defensive over an issue that is central to the campaign for the November 2nd presidential election.
Mr Bush's Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, took aim at the president's comment in an interview yesterday suggesting the war on terror was not winnable.
In an interview broadcast on NBC's Todayshow, Mr Bush was asked if the war on terrorism would ever be won. "I don't think you can win it," he replied. "But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."
Mr Bush used a speech to the American Legion, the nation's largest veterans group, to fight back against the Kerry team's charge that he was taking a defeatist stance.
"We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start, but one that we will win," Mr Bush told the group. "It's a different type of war. We may never sit down at a peace table, but make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win."
Kerry campaign spokesman Mr Phil Singer derided Mr Bush's latest remarks. "What today showed is that George Bush might be able to give a speech saying he can win the war on terror. But he's clearly got real doubts about his ability to do so and for good reason," he said.
Mr Bush later told conservative talk radio host Mr Rush Limbaugh that he had meant the war on terror would not end with a conventional peace-signing. "Listen, I should have made my point more clear about what I meant. What I meant was, was that this is not a conventional war. It is a different kind of war," the president said on the radio program. "I probably needed to be a little more articulate."