I’d strongly disagree with that,” the president said.It was Bush’s first prime-time news conference since March 6, 2003, just days before the opening of the war to depose Saddam Bush’s only other evening news conference was on Oct 11, 2001, a month after the terror attacks.. It’s a legacy that really is based upon our deep belief that people want to be free and that free societies are peaceful societies.”"Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don’t believe Iraq can be free; that if you’re Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can’t be self-governing or free. “All are the work of a fanatical political ideology.”The legacy that our troops are going to leave behind is a legacy of lasting importance, as far as I’m concerned. He said he had instructed the military to use decisive force if necessary to crush the insurgency.He compared insurgents taking hostages in Iraq to radical Islamic fanatics around the world, saying they are “serving the same ideology of murder” of those who blow up trains in Madrid, Spain, bomb buses in Israel or inflicted the worst attack in American history.”None of these acts is the work of a religion,” Bush said.

At least 678 US troops have died since the war began in March 2003.Additionally, four American employees of a private security company working in Iraq were killed and their bodies mutilated two weeks ago, and Thomas Hamill, an employee of another firm, was seized as a hostage last week.Bush said the United States was demanding the arrest or capture of Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose illegal militias have fought US forces in southern Iraq. Former Acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard testified he didn’t know where the information about the FBI investigations came from, and one commission member, Slade Gorton, suggested many of the investigations related to fund raising, not the threat of attacks.Bush said he would investigate the matter.Bush strode into the East Room of the White House midway through the deadliest month for Americans since Baghdad fell last spring.At least 83 US forces have been killed and more than 560 wounded this month, according to the US military, as American troops fight on three fronts: against Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, Shiite militiamen in the south and gunmen in Baghdad and on its outskirts. Bush initially opposed creation of the agency but changed his mind under prodding from lawmakers.The president also said a highly publicized intelligence briefing he received on Aug. 6, 2001, contained “nothing new” in terms of disclosing that Osama bin Laden hoped to attack the United States. He was heartened, he said, by the disclosure that the FBI was conducting numerous investigations.But that claim was undercut earlier in the day at a televised hearing by the commission investigating the terrorist attacks.

Just like we’re working to prevent further attacks,” he said.Asked whether he felt any responsibility for the attack, Bush said he grieved for the families of the victims and said in retrospect he wished, for example, the Homeland Security Department had been in place. Growing numbers of people say the military action in Iraq has increased rather than decreased the threat of terrorism.Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said Bush failed to explain how he would stabilize Iraq.”We need to set a new course in Iraq,” Kerry said in a statement. “We need to internationalize the effort and put an end to the American occupation. We need to open up the reconstruction of Iraq to other countries. We need a real transfer of political power to the UN”While Bush opened with remarks about Iraq, the questions were broader focusing as well on the Sept. 11 attacks.”Had I had any inkling whatsoever that people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect the country.