Bush says Democrats want to "cut and run" from Iraq

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sep 29 (Reuters) Battered by Democrats over a new intelligence report, President George W. Bush fought back in an election-year speech, saying Democrats represented the party of ''cut and run'' from Iraq.

Without mentioning them by name, Bush seized on comments by California Democratic Rep. Jane Harman and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller as evidence of what he called the opposition party's weak resolve on Iraq.

''Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstructionism and endless second-guessing. The party of FDR (Franklin D.

Roosevelt), the party of Harry Truman, has become the party of cut and run,'' Bush told more than 2,000 cheering loyalists in a Republican fund-raising speech yesterday.

Bush's sharp attack suggested he had been feeling the heat from Democrats' accusations about the war during an election campaign he would like to keep focused on the war on terrorism, but which they would like to use as a referendum on the Iraq war.

The ''cut-and-run'' charge has been used extensively by Bush's allies but rarely by the president himself.

The White House has scrambled to explain a new National Intelligence Estimate that said the Iraq war had become the ''cause celebre'' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for a global Islamic extremism movement.

Democrats seeking to oust Republicans from control of the House and Senate in Nov. 7 elections seized on that portion of the report as evidence Bush's Iraq war strategy is a failure.

''Democrats are using the NIE to mislead the American people and justify their policy of withdrawal from Iraq,'' Bush said.

''The American people need to know what withdrawal from Iraq would mean. By withdrawing from Iraq before the job is done, we would be doing exactly what the extremists and the terrorists want.'' Democrats fired back.

''Rather than heed the warnings in the NIE, President Bush politicized this discussion and the Republican Congress has stood on the sidelines,'' said Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

'FALSE LOGIC' Bush said that if not for the Iraq war, extremists would use other means of recruitment, mentioning cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that caused Muslim outrage earlier this year.

''If we weren't in Iraq, they would be using our relationship and friendship with Israel to recruit, or the Crusades, or cartoons,'' he said.

Bush was particularly exercised by a comment from Harman, ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, who said this week that by fighting extremists in Iraq, ''it may become more likely that we'll have to fight them here.'' ''History tells us that logic is false,'' Bush said. ''We didn't create terrorism by fighting terrorism. Iraq is not the reason why the terrorists are at war against us.'' He also chided Rockefeller for suggesting the United States should not have invaded Iraq in 2003 even if it meant leaving Saddam Hussein in power.

''If this is what the Democrats think, they need to make this case to the American people,'' he said.

Bush's speech raised 2.5 million dollar -- 1.7 million dollar for the re-election campaign of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and the rest for the Republican Governors Association.

REUTERS AD RAI0541