Beleaguered Bush steps up PR blitz with live address

George Bush last night sought to reclaim the initiative after a bruising weekend in which the president was forced to admit that he secretly ordered a spying programme to eavesdrop on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists, and revelations that the US operated a secret prison in Afghanistan.

According to early excerpts released by the White House, Mr Bush used a live TV address - his first from the Oval Office since he announced the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 - to tout last Thursday's elections there as a hopeful sign of progress in the war-torn country. "This election will not mean the end of violence", the president said, but it did mean that America "has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror".

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And in a direct rebuff to critics who have called for an immediate withdrawal, he said that pulling out of the country would signal that America "cannot be trusted", and would "hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us".

Last night's primetime TV address, which followed four speeches by Mr Bush in the run-up to last week's Iraqi elections, spelling out his strategy for winning the war, was part of an attempt by the administration to shrug off a disastrous summer which saw the president's approval ratings fall to an all-time low in the wake of the administration's hapless response to Hurricane Katrina, and amid worries over the rising death toll in Iraq.

The public relations blitz included a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday by Dick Cheney in which the vice-president also declared that quitting Iraq was not an option. But even as Mr Cheney toured the capital, a string of attacks killed up to two dozen people.

Mr Cheney, who predicted before the war that Iraqis would greet Americans as liberators, arrived in Iraq amid a shroud of secrecy and extremely tight security. Even Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said he was surprised when he showed up for what he thought was a meeting with the US ambassador only to find Mr Cheney waiting to greet him.

The vice-president flew around the Baghdad area in a pack of heavily armed Blackhawk helicopters. As well as meeting the country's leaders, he watched Iraqi troops training and gave an address to US soldiers during which he told them: "The only way to lose this fight is to quit, and that is not an option."

But despite the White House public relations offensive and last Thursday's mostly peaceful elections there, the administration found itself on the back foot over the weekend. As recently as Friday Mr Bush had refused to comment on claims in the New York Times that for the last four years the National Security Agency had engaged in domestic spying without court warrants.

But in an unusual live radio address on Saturday the president said he had ordered the domestic spying because it was "critical to American lives" and "consistent with US law and the constitution".

He also launched a bitter attack on the press for disclosing the secret programme, and rebuked Senate Democrats for blocking renewal of the Patriot Act which expanded the president's power to conduct surveillance in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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