Ideas Key to Beating Terrorists, Bush Says

President Bush issued a dour assessment of the war against terrorism Tuesday, underscoring the strength and zeal of Islamic extremists confronting the United States five years into the struggle.

In a new report updating the nation’s anti-terrorism strategy, the administration said the U.S. and its allies needed to fight “both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas”; it called on other nations to become more accountable in counteracting terrorist networks.

“In the long run, winning the war on terrorism means winning the battle of ideas,” the document said. “Ideas can transform the embittered and disillusioned either into murderers willing to kill innocents, or into free peoples living harmoniously in a diverse society.”

Delivering the second in a series of speeches tied to the Sept. 11 anniversary, Bush linked the war in Iraq to the campaign against terrorism.

He raised the specter of Islamic extremists -- Shiite and Sunni -- undermining Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, gaining control of oil resources and purchasing “weapons of mass murder.”

“Armed with nuclear weapons, they would blackmail the free world and spread their ideologies of hate and raise a mortal threat to the American people,” Bush said. “I’m not going to allow this to happen, and no future American president can allow it either.”

Democrats on Tuesday sharply criticized Bush’s speech and Republican efforts to fight terrorism.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said: “In five years, you would think the Republicans who control the White House and Congress would have taken the necessary steps to protect the American people. You would be wrong.”

And Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Bush had mistakenly focused on Iraq, rather than on pursuing Osama bin Laden. “In a feat of incompetence and ideology, this administration has chosen to fight the primary battle in the wrong place, in the wrong way.”

Bush’s speech and the 19-page “National Strategy for Combating Terrorism” raised anew the concerns that arrived with the terrorist attacks five years ago: that the nation is vulnerable to a hidden enemy seeking to bring dramatic changes to the world in the name of a radical form of Islam.

The White House report reflected what one official said was an “increased understanding of the enemy” and what others said were changes in the U.S. response since the first such report was prepared in 2003.

Al Qaeda and its affiliate organizations, the document said, had been joined by copy-cat organizations, grass-roots groups and individuals resorting to violence to express their grievances. In addition, a loose affiliation of militants has surfaced, inspired by a common ideology but not operating under the sort of direct command structure that once characterized Al Qaeda.

The strategy paper also implied that other nations had not done their share and had not fully cut off support for terrorists.

Calling for the same sort of alliances that opposed communism during the Cold War, the document said the nations of the world had a responsibility to fight terrorism.

It called for the United States’ allies in the anti-terrorism campaign to meet international standards -- presumably in regard to monitoring and restricting financial transactions and international communications that underpin connections between terrorist cells in distant locations.

That emphasis raises the risk of irritating such key partners as Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- which have been accused in recent years of not pulling their weight in the counterterrorism campaign and of allowing Islamist militants to operate in their territory.

One White House official said authorities included those elements in the plan to diplomatically but forcefully remind some major allies that they needed to do more.

“We appreciate the cooperation of all and any nations that stand with us, but there are countries that have not been on the right side in the war on terror,” said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report. “Some have become cooperative. But of course we are also seeking more cooperation. It’s a recognition that we need allies in this fight.”

Raphael Perl, a terrorism expert at the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan congressional think tank, said the most significant change in thinking revealed in the White House report was “the focus on the ideology of terrorism and the defeat of violent extremism as an ideology.

It’s a recognition of the ideological basis of terrorism and the need to combat it.”

The report called on U.S. allies to work with Washington to promote freedom and human dignity as alternatives to what it said were the terrorists’ “perverse vision of oppression and totalitarian rule.”

It said that much of today’s terrorism stemmed not from the war in Iraq or the United States’ alliance with Israel, but from political alienation in which vast numbers of people had no voice in their governments and little opportunity to promote change at home.

The president spoke to a meeting of the Military Officers Assn. of America at a Washington hotel. The series of speeches, which began with an address Thursday to the American Legion in Salt Lake City, will conclude with an address in two weeks to the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The speeches are setting the tone for the Republican campaign for the November midterm elections, playing to the party’s perceived strength in the national security arena.

With the coming elections, Bush is facing what may be the most critical political battle of his second term: At stake are not only control of the House and Senate, but also the degree of political and financial support for continuing the war.

Discussing what he has described as the central ideological struggle of the new century, the president equated Bin Laden to Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler. The world ignored them at first, he said, “and paid a terrible price.”

“Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them,” Bush said. “The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?”

Also Tuesday, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales told reporters that the administration would send to Congress “shortly” proposed legislation establishing military tribunals to try suspected terrorists.

He indicated that the administration would seek the right to withhold classified information from defendants in such cases, and other exceptions to rules governing military courts-martial.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that earlier Pentagon rules governing tribunals violated U.S. and international law.

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james.gerstenzang@ latimes.com

josh.meyer@latimes.com

Times staff writers Doyle McManus, Richard B. Schmitt and Maura Reynolds contributed to this report.