With a pledge to battle terrorism and promote democracy around the world, United States President George Bush was to launch his new term on Thursday under an unprecedented security blanket and a dusting of snow.
Bush (58) was to be sworn in outside the US Capitol at noon (5pm GMT), in the 55th US presidential swearing-in and the first since the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks that transformed his time in office.
Earlier, Bush, accompanied by his parents, former president George Bush and Barbara, as well as his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, attended an early church service two blocks from a White House under heavy guard.
An army of police and Secret Service agents responsible for the president’s safety patrolled the streets around the White House, which were sealed off with forbidding black metal fences while dump trucks blocked key access points.
On the grounds of the presidential mansion itself, specially trained counter-assault forces could be seen, stamping their feet to keep warm in the chilly morning air while clutching submachine guns.
Four hours before Bush was to take the oath of office and lay out his vision for the next four years, well-wishers and protesters headed to downtown Washington, some on foot, others in limousines or city buses.
The first glimpse of the president came as he left the White House for church, accompanied by leading lawmakers, including opposition Democrats who have been fiercely critical of his policies, such as the invasion of Iraq.
Bush has frequently pointed to elections scheduled for January 30 in Iraq — where at least 20 people were killed when insurgents set off seven car bombs on Wednesday — as a hopeful sign for building a democracy there.
Bush, who smiled and waved as he walked out with wife Laura and his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, was to defend that war and argue that the best way to defeat global terrorism is to promote democracy worldwide.
”We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” Bush will say on the steps on the Capitol. ”The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
Aides said the address would run about 17 minutes and focus on broad priorities for the next four years, after a first term scarred by terrorist attacks and marked by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush is expected to lay out more specific goals, including more tax cuts and the partial privatisation of the government-run social security retirement programme, in his February 2 State of the Union address.
”America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home, the unfinished work of American freedom,” the president said in excerpts of his speech released by the White House.
”In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty,” he added.
The Washington Post on Thursday commended Bush’s lofty goals but cautioned that they could collide with the violent reality on the ground in Iraq and the fiscal reality of soaring budget deficits fueled in part by his tax cuts.
The Wall Street Journal urged Bush to use his election success and enlarged majority in both houses of Congress to extend his foreign policy doctrine of pre-emption to pressing domestic issues such as social security and immigration.
On Wednesday, Bush sought inspiration during a visit to the US National Archives, viewing George Washington’s 1789 handwritten inaugural address as well as the Bible the first US president used for his oath.
He also mingled with some of the donors defraying the estimated $40-million price tag for the festivities and went to a ball where guests paired black ties and cowboy boots, in a nod to the fashions of his adoptive home state of Texas.
”After I’ve given it my all for four more years, I’m coming home!” he told cheering supporters there.
Earlier this week, supporters flooded the city’s hotels, adding to downtown traffic snarls that turned streets near the White House into virtual rush-hour parking lots.
After the hotly disputed 2000 election came to its controversial end, Bush had vowed to unite a deeply divided US public, a theme he says will animate this year’s speech as well, despite his more comfortable winning margin.
”I know that this office carries a duty to the entire nation. After all, we are one America. And every day that I am your president, I will serve all Americans,” he said recently.
Bush said in another interview that the November 2 elections have ratified his decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein, even though polls show that a large number of his supporters erroneously believe that US forces have found the weapons of mass destruction at the core of his case for war.
”I think the decisions I’ve made in the last four years will make the world a better place,” he said.
But a BBC World Service global opinion poll out on Wednesday found that, on average across all countries surveyed, about 58% believe that Bush’s re-election has made the world more dangerous.
And back home, Bush’s scored a 51% approval rating in a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, one of the lowest for a president elected to a second term in the past 50 years. — Sapa-AFP