US President George W. Bush, in a new push to defend the war on Iraq in face of mounting doubts, said today he acted to protect Americans from "madman" Saddam Hussein.
"I acted because I was not about to leave the security of the American people in the hands of a madman. I was not about to stand by and wait and trust in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein," Mr Bush said in speech in New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary next year.
"Who could possible think that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power?" he asked.
His speech had little in the way of new arguments, but he and others in the administration were to make their case repeatedly in coming days in the face of criticism that they exaggerated the threat Iraq posed to justify the war.
Mr Bush spoke to an audience of New Hampshire National Guard troops and reservists. Nearly 200,000 reserve soldiers are on active duty, bolstering a US military stretched thin by deployments in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
"Serving your country can bring sacrifice and uncertainty and separation," he told the troops. "I want to thank your families." Family members of some reservists have been increasingly critical of the Bush administration for long, repeatedly extended deployments.
The speech was part of an aggressive new push by the Bush administration this week to revive waning support for the US occupation of Iraq. A nationally televised address about Iraq last month and a speech to the United Nations did little to answer public doubts.
A CBS/New York Times poll last week found growing doubts about whether the Iraq war was worth the cost. Only 41 per cent said it was, while 53 per cent said it was not, although about half said it was worth removing Saddam from power.
New Hampshire is scheduled to kick off the presidential primary season on January 27th. Like his father, former President George Bush, who lost a re-election bid in 1992, the president heads into a re-election year with a soft economy following a war against Iraq that initially boosted his popularity.