President George W. Bush urged Americans today to be patient as Iraq prepares for its election and vowed he will not be swayed by critics demanding a quick US troop withdrawal from Iraq.
In the last in a series of four speeches in two weeks laying out his Iraq strategy, President Bush again accepted responsibility for faulty intelligence pointing to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that he used as the foundation for his decision to go to war in 2003.
President Bush dismissed Democratic calls for a phased US pullout as a "recipe for disaster" because it would send the wrong message to US troops, Iraqis and al Qaeda.
It would tell the troops, he said, that the United States was "abandoning the mission they are risking their lives to achieve, and that the sacrifice of their comrades killed in this struggle has been in vain."
President Bush has used the series of speeches to try to explain his administration's strategy amid a drumbeat of criticism from Democrats who say he does not have a plan and wide public disapproval of his handling of the war.
The White House hopes a successful election tomorrow will be a symbolic blow to the insurgency and boost the confidence of Americans, giving Bush more time to pursue his goal of training Iraqi security forces before reducing US troop levels.
President Bush asked for patience from Americans to give Iraqis time to form their new government after the election. After the vote, he said, there will be "days of uncertainty" and the winners may not be clear until the early part of January.
"It's going to take a while. It's also going to take a while for them to form a government. The work ahead will require patience of the Iraqi people and require our patience as well," he said.
President Bush wants a smooth election to counter daily news of suicide bombings and the deaths of US troops - more than 2,100 US troops have died since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 - that have soured the American public on the war.
He said the war was Saddam Hussein's fault because he ignored the demands of the international community. "It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I am also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities and we're doing just that," he said. But he called the decision to topple Saddam the right one.
"Saddam was a threat," said Bush, adding that Americans and the world are better off because he is no longer in power.