More than thirty people were killed in a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad on October 27th, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. One blast occurred near a Red Cross building. Three other explosions hit Iraqi police stations. The day before, terrorists struck the al-Rasheed Hotel in the center of Baghdad. The hotel houses members of the U.S.-led coalition.
President George W. Bush says that, “There are terrorists in Iraq who are willing to kill anybody in order to stop [the coalition’s] progress”:
“The people who are conducting these attacks are cold-blooded killers, terrorists. That’s all they are. They’re terrorists. And the best way to find them is to work with the Iraqi people to ferret them out and go get them.”
The U.S. is committed to working with Iraqis to eliminate the terrorists. But the more progress that is being made in Iraq, the more desperate these killers become. President Bush says the terrorists “can’t stand the thought of a free society”:
“They hate freedom. They love terror. They love to try to create fear and chaos. And what we’re determined [to do] in this administration is not to be intimidated by these killers. As a matter of fact, we’re even more determined to work with the Iraqi people to create the conditions of freedom and peace, because it’s in our national interest we do so. It’s in the interest of long-term peace in the world that we work for a free and secure and peaceful Iraq. A free and secure Iraq in the midst of the Middle East will have enormous historical impact.”
The U.S., says President Bush, “will stay the course in order to achieve this objective.”
