WASHINGTON, April 1 - The White House, buoyed by support from a Democratic rival and a maverick Republican, vowed today that the United States would finish its peacekeeping mission in Iraq despite the grisly attacks on civilian contractors on Wednesday.
"There are certainly areas of Iraq that remain dangerous, but we will not be deterred by these cowardly, hateful acts," President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said. "This administration will continue working closely with the coalition and the international community and the Iraqi people, to help the Iraqi people realize a better future built on democracy and freedom."
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, President Bush's probable Democratic rival, issued a statement late Wednesday in which he expressed sympathy for relatives of the four contractors, as well as the families of five soldiers killed in Iraq on Wednesday.
"Americans know that all who serve in Iraq - soldier and civilian alike - do so in an effort to build a better future for Iraqis," Mr. Kerry said. "These horrific attacks remind us of the viciousness of the enemies of Iraq's fugtre. United in sadness, we are also united in our resolve that these enemies will not prevail." . . .
[Representative Nancy J.] Pelosi [of California] said the United States should persevere, even though "we can't be in denial about what is happening there in our enthusiasm to talk about progress that is being made."
"We're not going to run out of town because some people were lawless in Falluja," she said.
President Bush also got moral support from Senator John S. McCain of Arizona, a Republican who has never been in lock-step with the administration and who, indeed, is known to have at best a cordial relationship with the President.
"As all Americans, I was grieved and horrified," Mr. McCain said on the "Early Show" on CBS.
But when he was asked whether he could see the United States withdrawing from Iraq, he replied, "I cannot."
"If we fail there, then Iraq would quickly become a place of training and exporting of terrorism," Mr. McCain said. "It would be a return to a chaotic situation of enormous proportions. It actually would break up ethnically and on religious lines, and we would have an enormous problem."
And in words that were surely pleasing to the White House, Mr. McCain said he was sure that, had Saddam Hussein stayed in power, he would have acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/middleeast/01CND-REAC.html> ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>