Bush Says Iraqi Insurgents Fail to Stop Democracy From Emerging

June 25 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush, previewing his speech next week to mark the anniversary of Iraq reclaiming its sovereignty, said insurgents in that country have consistently failed to undermine its emerging democracy.

The terrorists' objective is to break the will of America and of the Iraqi people before democracy can take root,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address today.Insurgents have tried to achieve that goal before’’ and failed.'' <center><img src="http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/dead_troops.jpg"></center> U.S. forces have struggled to quell an insurgency that has killed more than 1,000 people since April 28. As many as five U.S. marines and a sailor may have died and 13 Marines were wounded when a suicide bomber rammed a car into a U.S. military convoy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah this week. Bush, under pressure from lawmakers to outline plans to bring troops home, yesterday rejected a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces. <center><img src="http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/light_at_end_of_tunnel.jpg"></center> <img src="http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/iraqi_voted-s.jpg" align="left" hspace="5">He plans a June 28 speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to mark one year since Iraq gained transitional sovereignty under the U.S. plan to hand over control to an Iraqi government. White House officials said Bush will lay out a strategy for success in Iraq that is based on military and political action. In today's radio address, he mentioned both aspects of his plan. He said U.S. troops must train Iraqi security forces to defend their own country and said the U.S. will continue to help Iraqis build democratic institutions. With public opinion polls showing weakening support for the U.S. involvement in Iraq, Bush said there are challenges ahead. <emb1828|center>Our nation’s mission in Iraq is difficult, and we can expect more tough fighting in the weeks and months ahead,’’ he said.

A CNN/USA Today poll released June 20 showed 59 percent of Americans want at least a partial withdrawal of the 135,000 U.S. troops there. A New York Times/CBS poll said 51 percent of Americans think invading Iraq was a mistake.