'America is addicted to oil'

2006-02-01 08:30

President George W Bush addresses the nation. (AP)

Washington - A politically weakened President George W Bush has declared on Tuesday night that America must break its long dependence on Mideast oil and rebuked critics of his stay-the-course strategy for the unpopular war in Iraq.

"America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Bush said as he sought to drive the election-year agenda in his annual State of the Union address.

Rejecting calls for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Bush said, "There is no peace in retreat." He also slapped at critics, many of whom argue Bush went to war on the erroneous grounds that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"Hindsight alone is not wisdom," Bush said. "And second-guessing is not a strategy."

US mustn't become complacent

With Congress facing midterm elections in November, there was a partisan mood in the chamber, with minority Democrats cheering when Bush noted that Congress did not act on his main proposal in last year's speech, overhauling the Social Security pension system.

Bush declared that the "the state of our union is strong" despite Americans' anxieties about the war in Iraq, the economy, and rising energy prices which throwing a cloud over the economy and pinching Americans' pocketbooks.

Bush's address came amid change in Washington. Conservative judge Samuel Alito was sworn in on Tuesday as a new Supreme Court justice.

Facing budget deficits that may approach or exceed $400bn this year, Bush had no room for expensive initiatives, like last year's Social Security plan.

Bush said the United States needed to strengthen its competitiveness in the global economy. "The American economy is pre-eminent but we cannot afford to be complacent," he said. "In a dynamic world economy, we are seeing new competitors like China and India."

Three years from leaving office, Bush went before the nation as a politically weakened president after the toughest year of his administration. With Americans anxious about the economy, weary of the Iraq war and unhappy about the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush's job approval rating is in the anaemic high 30s to low 40s.

As he has in every State of the Union address to some extent, Bush said the United States must curb its reliance on foreign oil imports. He called for more research on batteries for hybrid and electric cars and work on alternative fuels to produce ethanol from wood chips, stalks or switch grass.

"Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years," the president said. "Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.

- AP