Bush Campaigns For War Support

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- With a weather eye to slipping polls, President Bush Thursday opened a massive campaign to drum up support for his war on terrorism and offset doubts about its progress being voiced in the United States and Europe.

In an extraordinary flurry of activity the White House announced the president would:

-- Give a nationwide address to the American people about homeland defense and security and "the progress" of the war on the "homefront." The White House did not disclose when or how this message would be delivered.

-- Announce "progress" on tracing the money of the alleged terrorists.

-- Meet at the White House with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Nov. 6 and with President Jacque Chirac of France on Nov. 12. He also will have discussions with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India, President Fernando Henrique Cardozo of Brazil, Brian Ahern, prime minister of Ireland and Abdul Azziz Bouteflika of Algeria.

-- Talk with members of the coalition about the war.

-- Give his first address before the United Nations on Nov. 10. The subject is expected to be the world war on terrorism.

Ted Galen Carpenter, the Cato Institute's vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, said: "I think it's worthwhile for him to focus on the terrorism issue, emphasize that the United Nations can play a very important role in the legitimizing the response of the international coalition. In essence, it's puffing up the United Nations a bit because frankly, the United Nations isn't going to play that significant a role in the anti-terrorism campaign. It basically blesses the efforts of others."

-- Give a satellite address to a gathering of Central European state leaders in Warsaw, Poland.

"The Central European states aren't in the position to provide us with much substantive help. It's more than a diplomatic gesture than anything else," Carpenter said.

Earlier Thursday, the White House announced that it has set up a "Joint Information Bureau" to be headed by Karen Hughes, Bush's top image advisor and Jim Wilkinson, a deputy communications director at the White House.

The JIB will be a 24-hour news operation with offices in Pakistan and London to offset what the White House said were misstatements and distortions broadcast by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and the leaders of the Taliban.

Ari Fleischer denied the move was because the White House had concluded that it was losing a public relations war against the Taliban, but because it wanted to reach people in different time zones with the U.S. official information. The JIB will have people conducting briefings and answering questions on a local time schedule in Pakistan and London, Fleischer said.

The administration clearly is reacting to growing public perception over the past 10 days that the air war in Afghanistan has been ineffective and the domestic efforts to halt the spread of anthrax seem to be struggling.

From the outset of the anthrax attacks in mid-September, the administration has had difficulties anticipating its spread and finding the persons who are spreading the disease. Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft acknowledged that the intense investigation by the FBI, using some of the 4,000 agents and 3,000 support personnel working on terrorism, had made no progress in identifying those who spread the anthrax.

There have been no major arrests or progress in the United States on the bombing attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon nearly two months ago, he acknowledged. There have been arrests abroad by foreign security agencies.

Briefings on anthrax by virtually every senior member of the administration involved in domestic issues have been sometimes confusing and contradictory. A well-connected Bush administration source that asked not to be identified by name told United Press International last week that the president would have to step in himself to restore public confidence.

A CBS-New York Times poll published Oct. 30 showed that though Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush, only 18 percent said they "had a great deal of confidence" the government can protect its citizens, compared to the 35 percent who said this in September.

A poll published this week by Britain's Guardian newspaper found support for the war had slipped from 74 percent to 62 percent. The poll showed that 54 percent of the people polled opposed halting the bombing during Ramadan, the month-long Muslim religious holiday. The United States has said the bombing will continue.

According to Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at a briefing for reporters Thursday, the "president believes" U.S. forces in Afghanistan "making progress."

"We have gone after and destroyed many, many Qaida training sites," Rice said. "They're not going to have the access to these sites they have in the past." Rice said U.S. forces have made "good progress against the Taliban's military assets" and that "we have made good progress" against Afghanistan's ability to be a place where terrorists could find a haven.