Bush dismisses Qaeda tape, condemns Zawahri

Texas - President Bush said on Thursday the United States would stand its ground in Iraq despite a new videotape threatening attacks from al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri whose ideology he dismissed as "dark, dim, backwards."

At a joint news conference with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at Bush's ranch, the president said Zawahri's videotape, which threatened attacks on the United States and Britain, made clear that Iraq is part of the war on terrorism.

"He's saying, you know, leave ... as I have told the American people, the people like Zawahri have a ideology that is dark, dim, backwards," Bush said. "He's threatening. They have come up against a nation that will defend itself."

He added: "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq."

U.S. officials were working to authenticate the videotape as that of the al Qaeda deputy to Osama bin Laden but they were assuming it was him.

The mounting U.S. toll in Iraq and deadly attacks in the last few days have again raised questions on whether Washington has underestimated the strength of the Iraqi insurgency.

Twenty-eight American soldiers have been killed in the past four days, many of them U.S. Marines from an Ohio-based Marine Reserve unit near Cleveland.

"The people of Brook Park (Ohio) and the family members of those who lost their life, I hope they can take comfort in the fact that millions of their fellow citizens pray for them. I hope they also take comfort in the understanding that the sacrifice was made in a noble cause," Bush said.

A CBS News poll on Wednesday said 55 percent of Americans did not approve of the way Bush was handling the Iraq war, compared to 41 percent who approved.

Forty-six percent of Americans believed Bush should decrease the number of U.S. troops there, and 59 percent said the war has not been worth the cost in lives and money.

Bush said Zawahri and his followers want to drive the United States out of the broader Middle East and spread their own ideology and "impose their dark vision on the world."

"The Iraqis want to live in a free society. Zawahiri doesn't want them to live in a free society. And that's the clash of ideologies: freedom versus tyranny," he said.

"We have had these kinds of clashes before and we have prevailed. We have prevailed because we're right. We have prevailed because we adhere to a hopeful philosophy. And we have prevailed because we would not falter," he said.

Bush said U.S. troops would remain in Iraq until Iraqis are sufficiently trained to defend themselves, as usual giving no timetable for this other than to say troops would return as soon as possible. -- Reuters

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