Bush reverses himself, says war on terror can be won

8.25am - By CAREN BOHAN

NASHVILLE - One day after saying the war on terror could not be won, President Bush yesterday 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, Bush found himself on the defensive over an issue that is central to the campaign for the Nov. 2 presidential election.

Bush's Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, took aim at the president's comment in an interview on Monday suggesting the war on terror was not winnable.

In an interview broadcast on NBC's "Today" show, 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."

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," 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," he added.

Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer derided 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," Singer said.

Bush later told conservative talk radio host 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 Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio program. "I probably needed to be a little more articulate."

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a popular former Bush rival who is now his frequent campaign companion, also came to the president's assistance on the road in Nashville.

"It didn't need clearing up, but winning is what we're going to do. Winning is what we're going to do in the war on terror," McCain said.

Bush's appearance at the American Legion was part of a tour of battleground states before he joins his fellow Republicans at the convention in New York on Wednesday, where he will be formally renominated for re-election the following day.

Bush and Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, are aggressively courting the veterans' vote. Kerry is slated to speak at the American Legion on Wednesday.

The Democratic senator had been pulling even with Bush among veterans in surveys after the Democratic convention in July. But polls suggest that attacks on Kerry's Vietnam war record by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth appear to have cut into the Democrat's support among ex-soldiers.

Kerry has accused the Bush campaign of collaborating with the Swift Boat group, a charge the White House denies.

Bush has refused to condemn attack ads by the group, although he has said that he believed Kerry served honourably and was "more heroic" than him during the war.

Bush spent the war in the United States serving in the Texas Air National Guard. Some Democrats accuse Bush of going absent without leave, citing gaps in his attendance record.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland)

- REUTERS