Bush says US 'did the right thing in Iraq'

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- President Bush, making his second trip to a Democratic primary state in the last seven days, declared that "knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq," but backed away from his longstanding assertions that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's speech was billed by the White House as an address on seaport and cargo security, and his visit to Charleston's Union Pier Terminal, part of one of the Southeast's most active ports, would have been a fitting venue. But with the signs of Democratic presidential candidates staked into the ground across the city, the president swept in and captured the attention of the local media, which offered minute-by-minute coverage of his vigorous retort to the criticisms Democrats had hurled at his administration in the days leading up to Tuesday's primary.

Barely touching on port security during his 33-minute speech, Bush instead touted his economic policies and reiterated his belief that his decision to topple Hussein was the right move, despite the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Bush, who had earlier said the captured Iraqi leader had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, yesterday said only that Hussein had the "capability to produce weapons of mass destruction," the "necessary infrastructure" to produce such weapons, and the "intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction."

"Knowing what I knew then, and knowing what I know today, America did the right thing in Iraq," Bush said.

The president is scheduled to stay on the heels of his Democratic opponents next week, when he is expected to visit Missouri, which held its primary on the same day that voters went to the polls in South Carolina.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan denied that Bush's schedule is tied to those of his Democratic rivals.

"There are primaries going on all over the country these days," McClellan said. "But the president is going to continue to get outside of Washington, D.C., and talk to the American people about the important priorities that we are addressing."

If history is a guide, Bush would have a hard time finding a state more receptive to Republican policies than South Carolina.

Bush won the state handily in 2000, beating Al Gore by 16 percentage points. Only once since 1960 have South Carolina voters not supported the Republican nominee, and that was when Jimmy Carter of neighboring Georgia ran for president in 1976.

South Carolina's staunch support of the Republican Party is often ascribed to racial politics, and political observers in the state say race was and remains a significant factor in why Democrats fail to win the state, with white voters having deep reservations about affirmative action and other programs aimed at assisting minorities.

But other factors -- the low rate of unionization and disagreement with Democrats on cultural and social issues such as gun control and abortion -- have also strengthened the Republican hold on the Palmetto State, political observers say.

Republicans are expecting South Carolina to give Bush another big win in November, and there was nothing about his appearance yesterday to dispel that notion. He was enthusiastically greeted, and curious onlookers peeked out of homes and store windows to see his motorcade.

Despite the hubbub Bush's visit created, Democrats are hoping the demographics of the state combined with the thousands of jobs that have been lost during the Bush administration will be enough to cause voters to reconsider their support of the president.

"The Republicans have successfully used cultural and social issues to keep voters who might vote based on economic issues from voting Democratic," said Jim Hodges, former Democratic governor of South Carolina. "But when you have a dominant economic issue, that trumps cultural and social issues. When you're in power, you've got to explain why these things happen."

Nearly 70,000 payroll jobs have been lost in South Carolina since Bush took office, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and while overall poverty rates have decreased, significant portions of the state continue to struggle with intense poverty.

Given the state's modest means and its demographics -- just under 30 percent of South Carolina's population is black -- the Palmetto State does not fit easily into the Republican mold and would seem a natural target for Democrats, who dominated the state for decades before the 1960s.

"It ought to be a natural fit," said Hodges, who upset Republican governor David Beasley in 1998 but was turned out of office after a single term.

Instead, the late senator Strom Thurmond, a former segregationist who staunchly opposed civil rights and was hugely popular in the state, led an exodus of whites from the Democratic Party in 1964, when passage of the Civil Rights Act prompted him to become a Republican. Democrats have been unable to reverse that exodus over the past 40 years.