Bush challenges "misimpressions" about Iraq

WASHINGTON, Sep 30 (Reuters) U S President George W Bush today challenged what he called public ''misimpressions'' about Iraq as he battled a gloomy assessment of the war in an intelligence report and the fallout from a book portraying him as in denial over it.

With five weeks to go before midterm congressional elections, and Democrats seizing on both revelations, Bush said the leaks of a U.S.

intelligence report indicating the Iraq war had increased the threat of terrorism created ''a lot of misimpressions about the document's conclusions.'' The president has since declassified 3-1/2 pages of the National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the 16 U.S. spy agencies.

The report's judgment that the Iraq war has become a ''cause celebre'' for Islamic extremists was seen by Democrats as bolstering their campaign argument that Bush's policies in Iraq had put Americans at greater risk.

Bush used his weekly radio address to challenge that interpretation.

''Some in Washington have selectively quoted from this document to make the case that by fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we are making our people less secure here at home,'' Bush said.

''This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we are provoking them,'' he said.

Democrats, who hope the November 7 election will be a referendum on the increasingly unpopular war, focused their own radio address on Iraq.

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