Bush Urges Unity on Terror

WASHINGTON —  Acknowledging “disagreements” over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President Bush on Friday urged world leaders to put their differences behind them and remain united in the battle against terrorism, warning that they would find “no neutral ground ... in the fight between civilization and terror.”

The president, speaking one year after he launched the war in Iraq, cast it as part of a global front against an enemy that cannot be appeased, saying terrorists are “offended by our existence as free nations.”

“There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy,” the president said in a White House address to envoys from 83 nations. “Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations. The only certain way to protect our people is by early, united and decisive action.”

Even as Bush spoke, new signs arose of the difficulties the United States faces in maintaining order in Iraq.

At the United Nations, American and British officials have begun working toward a new resolution, previously resisted by the United States, to reauthorize a multinational force in Iraq. The move was driven by Spain’s decision, announced Monday by its newly elected prime minister-designate, to withdraw its 1,300 troops unless there was a new U.N. mandate authorizing their presence.

In Baghdad, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell saw a reminder of the work yet to be done in Iraq when more than 30 Iraqi journalists walked out of his news conference, protesting the recent killing of two journalists for an Arabic television station near a U.S. checkpoint.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that two Marines had been killed in action Thursday in the western part of Iraq. In addition, a soldier died Friday of injuries sustained Wednesday north of Baghdad, and another died Thursday of injuries suffered last week in an accident in Kirkuk.

Also Friday, two rockets struck near the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led administration. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Bush spoke one year to the day after he made a televised address saying U.S. and coalition forces had started military operations “to disarm Iraq, to free its people and defend the world from grave danger.”

“The people of the United States and their friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder,” the president said at the time. “We will meet that threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

Despite a lengthy search, the United States has found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush spoke about the subject only indirectly Friday. “It is a good thing that years of illicit weapons development by the dictator have come to the end,” he said.

Acknowledging opposition to the invasion from many nations, including France and Germany, whose ambassadors were in the audience, Bush said: “There have been disagreements in this matter among old and valued friends. Those differences belong to the past. All of us can now agree that the fall of the Iraqi dictator has removed a source of violence, aggression and instability in the Middle East.... Who would begrudge the Iraqi people their long-awaited liberation?”

Diplomats listened in silence but stood up and applauded when Bush finished.

The president’s speech and a subsequent visit with wounded troops at an Army hospital in Washington, were part of a weeklong series of events marking the anniversary of the war.

Before Bush addressed the diplomats, White House national security advisor Condoleezza Rice appeared on the three major networks’ morning television shows to tout a similar message: that the liberation of 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq and the demise of two brutal regimes have been worth the sacrifices.

“The man was a threat to peace and security, and the world is far better off without him,” Rice said of Saddam Hussein.

But French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who opposed the Iraq war, said the conflict had made the world more dangerous.

“Terrorism didn’t exist in Iraq before,” the French newspaper Le Monde quoted him as saying in its Friday editions. “Today, it is one of the world’s principal sources of world terrorism.”

Democrats were unimpressed with Bush’s latest international outreach efforts.

“Violence is increasing and Iraqis, at least at the center, seem to be losing confidence in us,” Samuel R. Berger, who was President Clinton’s national security advisor, told reporters during a conference call organized by the campaign of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumed Democratic nominee for president.

“We seem to be losing allies, not gaining them, at the very time when we need at least the umbrella of internationalism more than ever,” Berger said. “I don’t believe that we have made the world safer from terrorism by virtue of the war in Iraq.”

The Marines whose deaths were announced Friday were based at Twentynine Palms, Calif. They were identified as Pfc. Brandon C. Smith, 20, of Washington, Ark., and Pfc. Ricky A. Morris Jr., 20, of Lubbock, Texas.

A soldier with the Army’s 1st Infantry Division died Friday of injuries sustained when a Bradley fighting vehicle overturned Wednesday near the city of Baji. Another 1st Infantry soldier injured in that accident had died earlier, the military said. Also, Pfc. Ernest Sutphin, 21, of Parkersburg, W. Va., died at a U.S. hospital in Germany of injuries suffered in a March 11 vehicle accident in Kirkuk, the military said.

In a positive development for the administration, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski reassured Bush on Friday that Polish forces would stay in Iraq “as long as needed.” His statement came a day after he suggested that Polish troops might leave Iraq ahead of schedule.

In a telephone conversation with Bush, Kwasniewski also sought to discount his remark Thursday about being “misled” on Iraq’s alleged stocks of banned weapons before the war, a Polish official said.

At the White House, Press Secretary Scott McClellan offered details of the conversation between Bush and Kwasniewski.

“Both leaders agreed that, in the wake of the attacks in Madrid, Poland and the United States must continue to stand firmly together in fighting terrorism,” McClellan said.

The phone call, which lasted about 15 minutes, had been scheduled “several days ago,” McClellan said.

Bush also spoke Friday with French President Jacques Chirac. They discussed the fight against terrorism, and Bush told Chirac that he would attend the June 6 ceremonies in Normandy observing the 60th anniversary of the D-day landings.

Times staff writers Patrick J. McDonnell in Iraq and Doyle McManus and Matea Gold in Washington contributed to this report.