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WASHINGTON - Beleaguered at home and facing military defeat in Iraq, President Bush offered effusive support for the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki yesterday - a day after US officials suggested he be pushed aside.
As Iraq's prime minister threatened to "find friends elsewhere" if the US withdrew support for his administration, a somewhat panicked Mr Bush offered unstinting support.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him," Mr Bush told military veterans in Kansas city.
The president also vowed to stay the course in Iraq and for the first time compared the situation to the Vietnam War, arguing that America's withdrawal had been catastrophic for millions of people.
"As long as I am commander in chief we will fight to win," Mr Bush said to resounding applause from a conference of US military veterans in Kansas City, "I'm confident that we will prevail."
The Iraqi prime minister had earlier reacted angrily to what he called the "discourteous" remarks from his US allies.
He suggested that if the was not treated well by the Americans, he would find another patron much less to their liking, such as Iran or Syria.
"Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria," said Mr Al-Maliki.
"We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our Constitution and can find friends elsewhere.
"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people."
The message was driven home to president Bush overnight.
If he was reticent in his support for Mr Maliki on Tuesday, he was positively effusive yesterday.
The President's words might have been scripted by the Iraqi Prime Minister as he scrambled to dispel the impression that he was distancing himself from Mr al-Maliki ahead of a much-anticipated assessment of the war in Iraq:
"And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position," Bush said.
"It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship."
On Tuesday president Bush said there was 'a certain level of frustration' with the Iraqi government's failure to unify Sunni, Shia and Kurd factions a few hours after Ryan Crocker, America's Ambassador to Baghdad described political progress in the country "extremely disappointing" and said that US support for the Maliki government would run out and did not come with a "blank cheque".
But it was Mr Bush's comparison of the war in Iraq to the Vietnam quagmire that raised most eyebrows yesterday.
He specifically linked the US defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam to the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, asserting controversially, that the American pullout lay behind the misery of millions.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields.'
Commentators were quick to point out that the bloodletting of the Khmer Rouge was a consequence of the US secret war again Cambodia.
'And it was President Bush who got us into the (Iraq) quagmire in the first place,' said David Gergen the commentator and veteran of several administrations.
Robert Dallek, a biographer of several presidents said Bush was ignoring basic differences between the two conflicts.
Referring to Cambodia's war Dallek told the New York Times that the killing field of the Khmer Rouge "was a consequence of our having gone into Cambodia and destabilised that country."
"We are still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we know how the others ended, and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today," the president said referring to the struggles against Japan and Korea in World War II.
"The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq," Mr Bush said.
"The defence strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbour helped raise up an Asian Tiger that is a model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East.
"The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia, is a freer, more prosperous and stable continent whose people want to live in peace with America not attack America," he said.
- INDEPENDENT
