US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is seen through a television viewfinder as she is interviewed at the White House in Washington, DC(AFP/File/Paul J. Richards)
Iraq attacks are not war: Rice
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush's national security adviser said in an interview that the rising death toll in Iraq is the price to pay for US security and does not signal a return to all-out war.
"Major combat operations have not resumed in Iraq by really any stretch of the imagination," Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) told a Seattle, Washington television station as part of an aggressive White House public relations campaign to build support for US-led efforts there.
Rice blamed "dead-enders" still loyal to Saddam Hussein's regime, as well as non-Iraqi fighters, for recent attacks on US-led forces, but said most Iraqis back the occupation.
Bush has drawn increasing fire for declaring major combat operations over in a May 1 speech aboard a homebound aircraft carrier, with a banner behind him proclaiming "mission accomplished" in Iraq.
More US troops have been killed in combat since that triumphant photo opportunity than during the original March invasion.
With Bush leading US tributes on the Veterans' Day holiday, Rice told several local television stations that he "mourns every loss" of US soldiers in Iraq but that "nothing of value has ever been won without sacrifice."
"It's very sad, and the president mourns each loss. But the sacrifices are necessary for the long-term security of this country. We must stay this course. Our will will not be broken," she told the Seattle channel, KING.
Bush has come under fire in some quarters for not attending any funerals of US soldiers killed in Iraq, but he has met with troops wounded there and privately spoken with relatives who lost loved ones in the campaign.
In several exchanges, Rice linked the US-led invasion of Iraq to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites) by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaeda network.
"The president made clear that we were going to fight this war on the offensive. We were not going to sit back and wait to be attacked again," she told KHOU-TV of Houston, Texas.
"We learned on September 11th that we can't just sit back and expect our oceans to protect us. And so this is a war, this is an effort that will make America more secure," she added.
Rice, who rarely gives such interviews, also acknowledged that steadily eroding public support for US-led stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Iraq had forced the Bush administration to step up its outreach efforts.
"It is extremely important in difficult times -- and these are difficult times in Iraq -- that the president and his advisors get every opportunity to speak to the American people," she said.
"The American people need to understand what's at stake here. And so it's important to get that message out," she said.