Bush Calls Blockage of Patriot Act 'Inexcusable'

President Bush, strongly defending a secret domestic spying program and the USA Patriot Act as vital tools in the war on terrorism, today denounced the disclosure of the surveillance as a "shameful act" and said it was "inexcusable" for senators to block renewal of the 2001 law's key provisions.

In a year-end news conference that followed a series of speeches on Iraq and a televised address to the nation last night, Bush insisted that his decision to authorize the domestic spying program was legal.

Bush reserved some of his most forceful words in the hour-long news conference for a "minority of senators" who used a filibuster last week to block Senate reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Voicing concerns that some key provisions violate civil liberties, most Democrats and a handful of Republicans voted against cutting off debate on the renewal bill. The vote in favor of invoking cloture was 52-47, well short of the 60 votes required to defeat the filibuster.

Noting that most senators had voted for the Patriot Act when it was approved by Congress in 2001, Bush said the filibustering senators "need to explain why they thought the Patriot Act was a vital tool after the September the 11th attacks but now think it's no longer necessary." A number of key provisions expire Dec. 31.

Implicitly rejecting Democratic proposals to pass a temporary three-month reauthorization while a compromise is worked out, Bush said: "The senators who are filibustering the Patriot Act must stop their delaying tactics, and the Senate must vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act. In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment."

Declaring that terrorists remain determined to strike the United States again and hope to inflict even greater damage than four years ago, Bush said, "Congress has a responsibility to give our law enforcement and intelligence officials the tools they need to protect the American people."

He later argued that the Patriot Act "helps us connect the dots" of terrorist plots, tying together clues through analytical work that some critics have said was missing before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer" without the renewal of the Patriot Act, Bush said. "It is inexcusable to say . . . 'connect the dots' and not give us a chance to do so."

Bush added, "I happen to know there's an enemy there. And the enemy wants to attack us. That is why I hope you can feel my passion about the Patriot Act. It is inexcusable to say to the American people . . . 'We're going to be tough on terror,' but take away the very tools necessary to help fight these people."

The president also spoke out strongly against allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons or the capacity to enrich uranium, possibly creating material for such weapons.

He acknowledged that the failure of U.S. intelligence to accurately assess Iraq's weapons programs before the 2003 U.S. invasion had created a credibility problem in sounding the alarm on such countries as Iran and North Korea.

"No question, that the intelligence failure on weapons of mass destruction caused all intelligence services to have to step back and reevaluate the process of gathering and analyzing intelligence -- no doubt about that," Bush said. However, it was "universally accepted" that a nuclear-armed Iran would not be "in the world's interest," particularly after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad recently expressed a "desire to annihilate" Israel, Bush said.