President to rally troops at MacDill

TAMPA -- President Bush plans to visit MacDill Air Force Base on Wednesday to rally military personnel and Americans finding the war in Iraq tougher than many expected.

It will be Bush's first presidential trip since the war began last week and an opportunity to regain control of the public relations battle. The White House announced the visit to Central Command headquarters on Monday, as newspapers and television stations across the country carried grim reports about coalition casualties and prisoners of war.

Bush will give a speech, have lunch with military personnel and meet with their family members to "show them how much he respects them and how much America loves them," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The visit, under tight security, is closed to the public.

Bush has repeatedly stressed that the war could be longer and harder than people hope, but the stiff Iraqi resistance over the weekend took many by surprise.

The stock market dropped sharply Monday after big gains last week. Also, weekend polls showed optimism about the war dropped sharply with news of casualties and prisoners. A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, for instance, found that the number of people who said the war is going well dropped from 62 percent Saturday to 44 percent Sunday.

"It's important to stay ahead of the curve on these things," said Don Baer, Bill Clinton's former communications director. "You don't want to hunker down and get complacent and leave the interpretation to people who don't know as much as you do."

So the president is raising his profile on the war, appearing at the Pentagon today and heading Wednesday to Tampa.

"Regardless of what happens with casualties or the pace of casualties, the president knows it is always an important part of his job to communicate with the American people and that's why he will continue to do it," Fleischer said.

After a weekend of TV footage of filmmaker Michael Moore trashing Bush at the Academy Awards and Internet and foreign television images of killed and captured American soldiers, the president in Tampa will be seen standing in support of his troops and they in support of him.

MacDill is home of Central Command headquarters, which oversees military operations in 25 countries, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Somalia. While much of the top brass, including Gen. Tommy Franks, is now running the war from Qatar, roughly 3,000 personnel remain in Tampa. Bush will be briefed on the war by Central Command officers in Tampa as well as from Qatar by video feed.

The visit will be the president's 14th to America's biggest swing state since becoming president. But Al Austin, a Tampa developer and prominent GOP fundraiser who plans to attend the MacDill visit, said this trip has much more to do with the military than politics.

"We're just happy the president is coming here to recognize all the people at Central Command, and their families, who are doing the heavy lifting," said Austin.

Gov. Jeb Bush expects to join his brother at MacDill, and talked to him a few days ago.

"The burden as commander in chief of the loss of American lives weighs on him heavily, but I think he's confident we're winning the war and, based upon what our expectations were, that things are going well," the governor said Monday.

The president's late-morning trip will last about three hours and should cause limited disruption to air travelers and drivers. Air Force One will fly in and out of MacDill, rather than Tampa International Airport, and the president will not require a motorcade.

Tampa police will help the Secret Service and MacDill military forces patrol the area in and around the base.

Officers will concentrate on MacDill's entrances. Because the president is flying straight to the base, police do not have to block miles of roads.

Police spokeswoman Katie Hughes said the agency is prepared for protesters outside the base, but officers have not heard of any planned rallies. If they come, the president is unlikely to see them.

Protesters would be confined to the parking lot area near the Dale Mabry entrance to the base, Hughes said.

"It's a high-profile visit," Hughes said. "We have to expect the unexpected."

MacDill's security forces will check all vehicles coming onto the base and provide crowd control.

"I feel privileged to have him come to Tampa," said Mayor Dick Greco, who planned to attend the event and said he had no concern about the visit making the area a larger target for terrorists. "People worry about everything."

The White House typically invites members of the local congressional delegation and both senators to join presidential visits, though in this case that includes one senator, Bob Graham, hoping to unseat the president in 2004. Graham's office had not heard from the White House by 5 p.m. Monday.

Other members of the congressional delegation were checking to see if the trip would conflict with votes in Washington.

"I expect the visit will mean a lot to the troops in Tampa Bay and their families that he's coming down here," said U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, whose district include MacDill and who planned to join the president at the event. C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, also planned to attend.

-- Staff writers Bill Adair, David Karp, Anita Kumar and Tamara Lush contributed to this report.

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