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Bush to put Iraq back in election debate
US President George W. Bush will put Iraq back at the heart of the presidential election campaign today when he makes the final State of the Union speech of his presidency.
- By Tim Shipman, The Telegraph Group Limited
- Published: 00:11 January 28, 2008
West Palm Beach, Florida: US President George W. Bush will put Iraq back at the heart of the presidential election campaign today when he makes the final State of the Union speech of his presidency.
The President will use his annual address to Congress to insist that America is now winning in Iraq - an argument that aides believe will help John McCain to win conservative support in primary elections over the next 10 days.
Bush's speech, designed to lay down a blueprint for his political legacy, will push his own record to the forefront of the race for the White House.
Campaigning in West Palm Beach, Florida, McCain said that he had discussed the content of the speech with the president.
The former Vietnam war hero, who lost the Republican nomination to Bush in 2000, has built himself into a frontrunner this time, partly through his espousal of the apparently successful surge strategy in Iraq, before even the Bush administration embraced troop increases.
The Arizona senator told The Sunday Telegraph: "I know what the president is going to say on Iraq. I have had many talks with him about it. We are succeeding. Al Qaida is on the run. They are not defeated. We have a lot of work to do.
"For us to do what Senator [Hillary] Clinton wants to do, which is to declare surrender - if we do that, I can't guarantee our security in the world. Listen to David Petraeus [the US commander in Iraq]. He argues that Iraq is the central front in the battle with radical Islam."
McCain joked: "I'd like to see President Bush use the State of the Union address to embrace his unabashed support for my candidacy. I'd like him to lean towards that." However, he added: "I don't think the president is interested in a message that helps or hurts me."
The most wide open primary election campaign in eight decades has almost entirely eclipsed Bush in the US media.
The coverage of the President's economic stimulus package last week focused not on the plan, but on the critical reaction of the candidates.
The Republican rivals contest a primary election in Florida tomorrow and a series of elections a week later on Super Tuesday.
Bush has spent recent weeks attempting to burnish his legacy as a statesman, with a long trip to the Middle East. But reporters ridiculed his willingness to spend more than an hour talking to them in Saudi Arabia. Newsweek's Michael Hirsch, reported: "It occurred to me: George W. Bush literally had nothing else to do on this afternoon."
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