NASHVILLE: President Bush said on Tuesday that Nato allies must “make the hard decisions” necessary to secure peace in Afghanistan and promised to press for increased contributions of troops and money next month to battle a resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Bush also cited political and security progress in Iraq, as he portrayed the two wars as part of a mission to defeat terrorism that will be passed on to his successors.

Speaking at Opryland, Bush said that since an American troop build-up in Iraq last year, “sectarian killings are down, Al Qaeda has been driven from many strongholds it once held. I strongly believe the surge is working and so do the Iraqis.”

As the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches next week, Bush fervently described the twinned elements of his foreign policy in a speech to the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters.

He presented them as a fight of good against an evil equal to the genocidal campaigns of World War II and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, declaring freedom, “God’s gift to all humanity”.

“We undertake this work because we believe that every human being bears the image of our Maker,” Bush said. “That’s why we’re doing this.”

In a comment that suggested an obligation on the part of the president who will succeed him to continue the mission, he said: “I believe it is important for administrations to confront problems now and not pass them on to other people, and that’s the choice I have made for the sake of peace and freedom.”

He spoke on a day when a roadside bomb missed a passing US military convoy and ripped into a bus on a highway south of Baghdad, killing 16 passengers and injuring 17 others, according to Iraqi security officials.

Monday was the deadliest day in Iraq for U.S. troops since the height of the troop build-up. Five US soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad and three American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala province.

Bush’s speech repeatedly was interrupted by applause and church-like murmurs of approval.

It was the first in a series leading to the anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, an attempt to set the stage for two potentially important moments in the US and international debates over that conflict and the one in Afghanistan.

In one, a Nato summit will be held in Bucharest, Romania, at which the alliance’s contributions to the war in Afghanistan are expected to be the central topic.

And, in the second, Ryan C. Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top US commander there, will testify before Congress in April.

Faced with a Democrat majority, Bush will use the authoritative voices of his top general and diplomat in Iraq, who are nearing the end of their tours, to pressure legislators seeking to draw down US troops in Iraq.

The administration’s primary goal is to persuade members that a too-steep withdrawal would put at risk the security and political gains the administration has claimed over the past year.

On Afghanistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week began to make the administration’s pitch to reluctant foreign ministers for increased troop deployments.

The Pentagon is planning to increase its contingent by 3,200 Marines, join-ing 26,000 US troops, some of which serve with 40,000 members of the Nato force.

The president said in his speech that he would remind Nato members the mission was one of security for Western nations and meeting humanitarian needs. in Afghanistan. He said he would ask Nato “to join the United States in doing even more”.

“For the sake of human life and human dignity and for the sake of the security of the United States of America we will stop this murderous movement now before it finds a new path to power,” the president said, referring to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Bush also sought to address critics who argue that the Iraq war has diverted attention and resources from what they see as the more important battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

“Some seem to believe that one of these battles is worth fighting and the other isn’t. In other words, there is a good war and a bad war,” Bush said. “The theatres are part of the same war, the same calling, the same struggle, and that’s why it is essential we succeed.”—Dawn/The LAT-WP Service(c) Los Angeles Times