CARLISLE, Pa. – President George W. Bush says that while there has been lots of debate about his policies, there can be no argument that America has been kept safe since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

In a speech at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., Bush said Wednesday that after the attacks, he set up an elaborate plan to reorganize the governmental apparatus to confront such threats. He said the United States has worked at the same time to nurture alternatives to hateful regimes.

The speech was part of what amounts to a presidential legacy tour, with Bush using his bully pulpit he still has to frame how the country will judge his service. His final day in office will be Jan. 20, when Barack Obama will be sworn in as president.

Barack Obama may have only won North Carolina by the smallest of margins in last month’s Presidential election but when it comes to who the state’s voters think will do the stronger job between him and the current President, it’s no contest, the PPP reports.

WASHINGTON – President Bush said Friday that the fight in Iraq has been longer and more costly than expected, but he defended the U.S.-led invasion, saying the world could not risk leaving Saddam Hussein’s power unchecked.

In a speech he was delivering later on Friday, Bush defended his Middle East policies, claimed some progress and outlined his view of what President-elect Barack Obama will inherit there. Bush said state-sponsored terrorism continues to destabilize the region, people still live under oppression, political and economic reforms are advancing “in fits and starts,” and Iran’s uranium enrichment remains a threat to peace.

The president said that while it’s true that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was not connected to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the decision to oust him cannot be viewed in isolation.

“In a world where terrorists armed with boxcutters had just killed nearly 3,000 people, America had to decide whether we could tolerate a sworn enemy that acted belligerently, that supported terror and that intelligence agencies around the world believed had weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said, referring to intelligence reports that later proved false.

“It was clear to me, to members of both political parties, and to many leaders around the world that after Sept. 11, this was a risk we could not afford to take,” the president said about the Iraq war, which has claimed the lives of more than 4,200 U.S. military personnel.

Bush also credited the Iraq invasion that deposed Saddam with persuading Iran to suspend its nuclear weapons search. He noted the U.S. intelligence community has timed Tehran’s halting of a key part of its nuclear weapons program to 2003 – the year the war began.

“The defeat of Saddam … appears to have changed the calculation of Iran,” Bush said.

More broadly, he defended his administration’s approach to diplomacy with Iran, which so far has been unsuccessful.

“We have made our bottom line clear,” Bush said. “For the safety of our people and the peace of the world, America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.”

Bush said that after Saddam’s regime had been toppled by U.S.-led forces, his administration chose to stand by the Iraqi people, help nurture a budding democracy – even launch a military buildup when increased violence threatened to tear the nation asunder.

“When Saddam’s regime fell, we refused to take the easy option and install a friendly strongman in his place,” he said. “Even though it required enormous sacrifice, we stood by the Iraqi people as they elected their own leaders and built a young democracy.”

Earlier this week, Iraq’s three-member presidential council signed off on a new U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, which requires the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops to leave Iraq by January 1, 2012. It also requires American soldiers to withdraw from Iraqi cities by the end of June 2009. On Thursday and Friday, Bush called several Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to thank them for their work in getting the agreement approved.

Bush said his policies in the Middle East have not always been popular and sometimes have fallen short of the administration’s goals. “For example, the fight in Iraq has been longer and more costly than expected,” he said.

Bush called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the most “vexing” problem in the region – something that his administration has been seen as slow, at least in his early years as president, to aggressively mediate.

Still, he noted that he was the first U.S. president to call for a Palestinian state and said he sees progress toward reaching a two-state solution. After months of publicly insisting that an agreement between the two sides could be sealed by a year-end deadline, which was set by the two sides and Bush last November in Annapolis, Md., the Bush administration has conceded that it will hand the fragile, unfinished U.S.-backed peace effort to Obama.

Bush recalled the status of the Middle East talks when he came to office, following former President Bill Clinton’s inability to forge an agreement at Camp David in 2000. The collapse of those talks gave way to the Al-Aqsa intifada, which broke out a couple of months after the Camp David peace summit in July 2000.

Bush said that in 2001, more than 500 Israelis and Palestinians were killed. He called the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a “terrorist who stole from his people and walked away from peace.”

He also criticized former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “Sharon was elected to fight terror and pursue a ‘Greater Israel’ policy that allowed for no territorial concessions,” he said. “And neither side could envision a return to negotiations or the realistic possibility of a two-state solution.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  – Still popular in Florida, former Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that he’s interested in the seat Sen. Mel Martinez is giving up, and the field of possible candidates could quickly narrow to make way for the president’s younger brother.

Bush, 55, won praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for leading the state through eight hurricanes over a two-year period.

He used standardized testing to overhaul the education system, was credited with making government more efficient and lowered taxes to make Florida more business-friendly.

While his older brother, soon-to-be former President George W. Bush, has been so unpopular that he has been a liability to many Republican candidates this year, Jeb Bush remains a popular figure here.

“I hope that Gov. Bush gets in the race. In my personal opinion, he understands public policy better than any other potential candidate looking at that race, by far,” said former state House Speaker Allan Bense, who was contemplating his own bid.

Bense said he would not run if Bush entered. “It would clear the Republican field, I’m sure.”

Martinez, who served in President Bush’s Cabinet and supported an immigration proposal unpopular with Republicans, has struggled to boost his approval ratings because of his close ties to the president. He said Tuesday he was not seeking a second term because he wanted to spend more time with his family.

The Cuban native who fled to America when he was 15 made his announcement early to give other Republicans time to mount their campaigns – and a list of potential candidates immediately exploded. Several Florida congressman indicated they were considering a bid, along with about a half dozen other former or current state officials.

The former Florida governor said Wednesday in an e-mail: “I am considering running,” but didn’t elaborate. A separate statement from spokeswoman Kristy Campbell sounded like the former governor was ready to get back into politics. “He will give it thoughtful consideration in the coming weeks and months,” the statement said.

“Governor Bush hopes to play a constructive role in the future of the party, advocating ideas and polices to get the conservative cause back on track.”

The statement means the former governor is all but certain to get in the race, said a person familiar with senior Republicans in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity so they could talk more freely about the former governor’s approach. Bush’s consideration – even if tentative in public – is a strategic one, to discourage other Republicans from jumping in, the person said.

By doing this, the former governor, for whom raising money and building an operation will not be hard, doesn’t need to get started campaigning for some time, the person said.

Democrats said they planned to put up a strong candidate.

“Jeb Bush will not clear both fields,” said Screven Watson, a former state Democratic Party executive director. “If a Bush is on the ticket … a lot of money will be coming in against him.”

But the former governor has remained popular in Florida even as his brother’s approval ratings declined.

A Quinnipiac University poll taken December 2006 during Jeb Bush’s final month in office found 57 percent of Florida voters thought Bush was a great or good governor. Only 10 percent said he was a bad governor. That poll also showed 59 percent of voters disapproved of the job President Bush was doing, compared with 38 percent who approved.

“Florida voters have always been able to distinguish between Jeb Bush and George Bush. It’s that simple. They thought he was a good governor, they thought his brother was a lousy president,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac’s polling institute. “The things that made president Bush unpopular were not things that Gov. Bush had to deal with – the national economy and the war.”

The former governor has spent much of his time since leaving office promoting education policy as the founder and president of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. As governor, he put a strong emphasis on standardized testing to keep teachers and schools accountable and passed a voucher program that allowed students in failing public schools to attend provide schools at taxpayer expense. That program was later ruled unconstitutional.

While President-elect Barack Obama won Florida, the state’s politics are more purple than red or blue. In 2006, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist won by a large margin, as did Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, and Florida Republicans continued their control of the state Legislature after last month’s election.

A new national study among 215 self-reported Democrats, Republicans and Independents revealed that the majority of Democrats (60 percent) indicated that the Bush administration is to blame for the current financial crisis in the U.S., while Republicans and Independents cited U.S. businesses and Congress.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, N.C. — When George Bush played host two weeks ago to the G-20 gathering of the world’s leading economic powers, it was apparent that they believed America’s economic power in the world has declined. Their question was: Can Barack Obama restore America’s financial health and regain its commanding international position?

Bush came under heavy pressure from the Europeans last month to call this meeting soon after the U.S. elections because of the world’s financial crisis. He told French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the G-8 group, which has dominated economic relations for 25 years, must be expanded and include such major new players as China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.

By this action, Bush may have earned himself the legacy of being the first American president to open the world’s financial club to a more representative array of economic players, to replace the European/American/Japanese centered G-8.

Barack Obama, as president, will inherit responsibility for managing America’s recovery from the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. His appointment of Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary should reassure bankers and investors at home and abroad that this key department will be led by an experienced, highly competent person.

OBAMA’S REPORTED choice of Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state generated great interest both at home and abroad. Supporters say her appointment to this important post will heal scars in the Democratic Party left by her failure to win the nomination for president and Obama’s failure to select her as his running mate. Skeptics wonder whether Bill Clinton’s desire to play a role in international affairs can be limited.

A larger, crucial question, is whether President Obama and a Secretary Clinton will forge a close partnership on foreign policy and speak with one voice to the world’s leaders. For example, will their working relationship be as close as George H.W. Bush’s was with James Baker, his chief diplomat, or Richard Nixon’s ties were with Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser and eventually secretary of state?

The selection of retired Gen. James Jones, former supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, as national security adviser gives Obama, who has little experience in that field, a highly regarded military adviser with broad foreign policy experience. Jones will also be of great help in working with the Pentagon, where Robert Gates, who performed exceptionally well for the past two years, reportedly has agreed to stay on as defense secretary.

The Obama-Clinton relationship will be tested quickly in the Middle East, specifically on relations with Iran and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shifting some U.S. military resources from Iraq to Afghanistan next year will also be a challenge.

But a disturbing, longer-range challenge facing the incoming administration is how to deal with the increasingly assertive leaders of Russia, President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

MOSCOW’S invasion of neighboring Georgia last August and its refusal to join European and American efforts to impose tough economic sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program causes NATO to question Russia’s intentions.

Within hours of Barack Obama’s election on Nov. 4, Medvedev threw cold water on his celebration by publicly threatening to place missiles on the borders of Poland and Lithuania, both NATO countries, if the new administration installs a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Although Bush administration officials argue that the defense shield is directed at Iran’s nuclear threat and offers Russia an opportunity to join, Moscow views a U.S. missile installation so close to its borders as a vital national interest, equivalent to putting a Russian base in Venezuela or Nicaragua.

Is it possible that the incoming President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton could negotiate a compromise with Moscow? For example: In return for Washington’s suspending plans for a defense shield in Poland, Moscow agrees to exert real pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program. If Iran can be persuaded to abandon plans to become a nuclear power, there would be no need for a U.S. defense shield in Poland.

Another potential negotiation with Russia might be: in return for its guaranteeing an uninterrupted flow of natural gas to Western Europe, NATO would put off plans to offer membership to Ukraine and Georgia, another grievance of Medvedev and Putin.

Barack Obama expressed interest during the election campaign in talking with this country’s adversaries and trying to reach accommodations. Moscow might be a good place to start.

This editorial appeared in the Richmond times Dispatch Nov. 29. Courtesy of Media General News Service. Donald Nuechterlein teaches American foreign policy at the University of Virginia and is the author of numerous books in the field. Contact him at nuechtd@cstone.net.

GREENSBORO, N.C. – President George W. Bush, trying to emphasize the softer side of his policy record before leaving office, on Tuesday thanked volunteers who have served as mentors to children of prisoners.

“These youngsters have ambitions and goals,” Bush said after a private discussion with a few children and their mentors in North Carolina. “They want to go to college. They want to make a difference. And I suspect that the mentors will be anxiously following the career of someone they’ve been able to help.”

Bush popped into the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Greensboro – which has worked with Youth Focus Inc., a nonprofit agency – to match 220 children of prisoners with adult mentors. The program is part of a national initiative, championed by Bush, that has provided mentors to more than 110,000 children.

In support, the Department of Health and Human Services has awarded more than $175 million in grants to 320 organizations in all 50 states, the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico. Bush encouraged anyone hearing about the mentoring program to consider taking part in it.

Making a difference, Bush said, “doesn’t take much. All it takes is time. It takes a little bit of extra love.”

The White House used the stop to emphasize Bush’s efforts to support community groups as partners in solving problems.

The president said people who help children also help their country, “one heart, one soul at a time.”

When Bush landed at Piedmont Triad International Airport, he greeted Donna Hudson Turner of High Point. Bush gave Turner, 76, the President’s Volunteer Service Award, honoring 25,000 hours of volunteer service with Hospice of the Piedmont. Turner started her hospice work in 1983.

Turner, who came out to the tarmac in her wheelchair that she’s often used since a stroke in 2003, stood to greet Bush. She said afterward that it was an honor to meet him and to receive the award.

“I just stopped shaking,” she said a couple hours after meeting the president. “I’m just a private person, and I don’t like attention. I just want to do my stuff.”

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush says history will judge him, but he is getting his own crack first. Bush is using his final 50 days in office to tout his legacy, hoping to leave a lasting impression of overshadowed progress. On Monday, World AIDS Day, Bush was heralded for his leadership in fighting the disease, a point that even his Democratic critics readily concede.

The anti-AIDS program Bush championed in 2003 has delivered lifesaving medicine to more than 2 million people in five years, up from 50,000 people before it began. Many of those helped live in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS is the leading killer.

“I would hope that when it’s all said and done, people say, `This is a guy who showed up to solve problems,’” Bush said at a global health forum. “And when you have somebody say there’s a pandemic that you can help, and you do nothing about it, then you have frankly disgraced the office.”

For most of his last year in office, Bush has shied away from legacy talk for two reasons. One is that he did not want to seem as if he were looking back when he was still running the country. The other is that he did not want to get dragged into the 2008 presidential campaign by defending his record.

That’s over now. Once Democrat Barack Obama beat Republican John McCain for the White House, Bush’s final agenda has shifted focus. He is still active on the crises of the day — the economic mess, the terrorist attacks in India — but he is notably carving out time to emphasize priorities of the last eight years.

That is why on Tuesday, he’ll be in Greensboro, N.C., to trumpet a program that mentors children of prisoners. It is part of a nationwide mentoring program that Bush promoted in his 2003 State of the Union address, the same time he announced his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

On Friday, Bush will give a speech defending his efforts in the Middle East. In the coming weeks, he is expected to reflect on the No Child Left Behind Act, the signature domestic policy win from his first term; and on the two-year anniversary of a controversial troop build up that helped shore up security in Iraq.

All that follows a quietly building pattern of Bush speeches in which he has defended his record on helping veterans, promoting volunteerism, putting his stamp of judicial philosophy on the Supreme Court, and standing by trade even in tough economic times. The effort has been overshadowed by bigger news.

For example, just as Bush was talking about the global fight against AIDS on Monday, Obama was dominating cable news with the announcement of his national security team. Bush has shown no resentment about the diminishing spotlight and has gone to extra lengths to cooperate with Obama’s team.

But the White House has no intention of quietly shutting off the lights.

It wants the country to remember more than the war in Iraq, the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, and all the government bailouts to help a crashing economy. Bush’s highest approval this year was only 34 percent in January, and it dipped as low as 26 percent in October, according to AP-Ipsos and AP-GfK polls.

“Everybody wants to be liked,” Bush said at Monday’s forum when influential pastor Rick Warren chatted with him about the AIDS effort. “But being liked because you’ve actually done something constructive that’s measurable is the best way to try to be liked.”

The president, with help from Congress, was the force behind the anti-AIDS effort. At $15 billion, it was the largest international health initiative devoted to one disease. Congress has since renewed it at $48 billion to battle AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world over the next five years.

More than 10 million people have received broad care of all kinds through the program.

Bush toured African nations in February, inspecting health clinics and meeting families who have found new hope. He was greeted joyously.

“I wish the American people could see what we have seen … People literally lining the roads in Tanzania, all waving and anxious to express their love and appreciation to the American president, who represents the American people,” he said Monday.

Noting the reception he sometimes gets at home, Bush said: “It was good to see them all waving with all five fingers, I might add.”

President Bush says he wants to be remembered “as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process,” according to the New York Times.