High stakes for Bush in Iraq news conference [View All]

[happyending]

High stakes for Bush in Iraq news conference

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will try to convince increasingly sceptical Americans at a rare news conference that
he has a strategy to deal with Iraq's rising violence.

In his first prime-time news conference since just before the Iraq war in March 2003, Bush is likely to be grilled on issues ranging from his
handling of U.S. intelligence before the September 11, 2001, attacks to Middle East peace talks to the economy.

But Iraq is the theme the president will focus on. He will open the news conference with a 12-minute statement on the U.S. occupied country
which he invaded after accusing it of developing weapons of mass destruction.

No such weapons have been found. And in contrast to U.S. troops being "greeted as liberators," as Vice President Cheney said before the
war, Iraq has slipped into a spiral of violence that has caused mounting U.S. casualties.


more here
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=4863414