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Tough Questions For The President

Last Tuesday night, President George W. Bush held his first news conference since the war in Iraq began 13 months ago. The President spoke directly to the American people. He vowed to continue the struggle to "secure a free Iraq" and hand control of the country over to its people on June 30. He also stressed the importance of fighting terrorism. "Now is the time and Iraq is the place in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world," he said. "We must not waver."

Reporters asked the President 18 questions. They all dealt with Iraq or the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the 9/11 Commission investigating those attacks. All of the questions were hard. But perhaps the toughest one was, "After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be?" Bush said he had no regrets about invading Afghanistan or Iraq.

For U.S. forces in Iraq, April has been the deadliest month so far. As of April 15, 88 soldiers had been killed. "It's been a tough, tough series of weeks," said the President.

There are 135,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. Military officials had planned to cut the number. On Thursday, however, military leaders announced that 20,000 troops would stay in Iraq three months longer than had been expected.

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