Defiant Bush claims he made the US a safer place

George W. Bush

WASHINGTON - For the fourth time in just eight days, US President George W. Bush yesterday sought to focus the country on his handling of the 'war on terror,' insisting that his administration had made the US far safer in the five years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"We have waged an unprecedented campaign against terrorism at home and abroad and that campaign has succeeded in protecting the homeland," Bush said in Atlanta, four days before the anniversary of the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

His latest speech came less than 24 hours after his surprise announcement of the transfer of 14 high value terrorist captives, including Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, from secret CIA camps to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yesterday Bush also delivered a spirited defence of the Patriot Act, the 2001 measure renewed last March by Congress which vastly increases the power of law enforcement agencies, but which critics say is a dangerous curtailment of civil liberties.

He insisted again that the controversial programme of warrantless domestic wiretapping, run by the National Security Agency, was essential if the US was to protect itself from future terrorist attacks on its own soil.

With this series of public appearances, Bush is seeking to imprint himself anew in the country's consciousness as he did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, his finest hour, when he vowed to track down implacably those responsible for the worst ever foreign attacks on the US mainland in modern times.

The same reason explains his determination to have Congress approve within the next few weeks the new proposals for special military commissions to conduct the trials of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and the rest - in the process ensuring that the legislature's business will be dominated by terrorism issues in the run up to November's mid-term elections.

Once again, Democrats have effectively been challenged to go along with the President, or face charges from their opponents of being soft on national security - a tactic that worked for the Republicans in both 2002 and 2004.

The commissions will replace the previous tribunals outlawed by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

If Congress goes along, they could be up and running early in 2007.

But serious obstacles remain - not least a group of senior Republicans, led by John Warner, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, who demand greater protection for detainees than those contained in the draft bill.

Human rights groups too are aghast at the new provisions.

As envisaged by the legislation sent to Congress by the White House, the commissions would allow the use of secret evidence and of statements obtained under coercion.

The new procedures "lack basic protections necessary for a fair trial," Human Rights Watch claimed.

In its present form, the measure would also make the Geneva Conventions - the internationally agreed guidelines for the treatment of prisoners in time of war - unenforceable in court, the group added.

For their part, Democrats will give Bush no free passes on the terror issue.

"We're not going to be 'Swiftboated' on this issue," Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic minority leader in the House, said.

She was referring to how John Kerry's 2004 Presidential bid was thrown off balance by attacks on his Vietnam service as commander of a US Navy gunboat.

Kerry's belated response to the attacks allowed Republicans to win the initiative at a critical moment of the campaign.

- INDEPENDENT