June 27 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush is a self- styled optimist. That may be causing him political problems over Iraq, as his administration's persistently upbeat assessments of the past two years continue to be undermined by new waves of bombings and deaths.

Bush is preparing to address the nation on Iraq tomorrow from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home to the Army's 82nd Airborne and the Joint Special Operations Command. The address, which is designed to make his case for American policy, comes as critics such as Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware charge there's a ``credibility gap'' between ``the rhetoric the American people are hearing and the reality that is happening on the ground in Iraq.''

A review of statements by the president and his top advisers since 2003 shows why such criticism seems to resonate with the public.

As recently as June 23, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted the Iraqi insurgency was in its ``final throes.'' The next day, at least five U.S. Marines and a sailor were killed in a car bombing near Fallujah.

Bush's credibility problem may have begun on May 1, 2003, when the president stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in view of a banner that read ``Mission Accomplished, '' and said: ``Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.''

Since that day, 1,581 U.S. service personnel and five civilians have been killed. More than 6,016 have been wounded. Only 109 U.S. soldiers were killed in the initial invasion of Iraq, and 426 wounded. U.S. forces found no stockpiles of the banned chemical and biological weapons that Bush said justified the invasion.

Vietnam Comparison

President Lyndon B. Johnson suffered a so-called ``credibility gap'' in the Vietnam War, which claimed more than 50,000 lives and forced him out of politics. Bush's credibility problem doesn't yet rise to that level, said Stephen Hess, a presidential historian at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

``The credibility gap goes back a long time, to the weapons of mass destruction and why we're there in the first place,'' Hess said. ``But right now it strikes me Bush is telling the American people about all he can.''

Bush got a boost in December 2003 when Saddam Hussein was captured hiding in a hole at a farm near his hometown of Tikrit. The next day Bush told reporters that Hussein's capture meant Iraq was ``on the path to freedom,'' and Iraqis could ``now focus with confidence on the task of creating a hopeful and self- governing nation.''

Handover

The next year, Bush hailed the handover of sovereignty to an interim government in Baghdad as another milepost. ``A free and sovereign Iraq is also a decisive defeat for extremists and terrorists because their hateful ideology will lose its appeal in a free, tolerant, successful country,'' Bush said in Istanbul on June 29, 2004.

Even as the U.S. was transferring power, the U.S. Army announced it would tap about 5,600 reserve personnel who had been previously discharged. The next day a mortar attack on a U.S. base near Baghdad airport killed 11 U.S. soldiers.

Throughout the 2004 presidential election campaign, Bush touted ``pretty good progress'' by the U.S-backed interim government of Ayad Allawi against the insurgents.

``Our strategy to win the war on terror is succeeding,'' Bush said in an Oct. 30 speech in New Hampshire. ``We are shrinking the area where terrorists can operate freely. We have the terrorists on the run.''

Bush used this year's State of the Union speech to Congress to say the U.S. was entering a ``new phase'' in Iraq, pointing to the purple-dyed fingers Iraqis held aloft after they voted for new leaders on Jan. 30, and promising a more capable Iraqi security force.

`Over-Optimistic'

The Feb. 2 speech struck an ``obviously over-optimistic'' tone, said Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research organization that has been critical of Bush's handling of the war.

In speeches around the country and White House appearances, Bush stuck to his optimistic assessment. In an April 28 news conference, he rebutted comments by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers that the Iraqi insurgency was as strong as it was a year earlier.

``We're making really good progress in Iraq,'' Bush said. ``We didn't pass sovereignty but about 10 months ago, and since that time a lot of progress has been made and we'll continue to make progress.''

Bush reminded another questioner that the U.S. had cut its troop total from 160,000 at the time of January's election to less than 139,000.

The following day, an audiotape by al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi urged militants to continue attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. Within days about 50 people had been killed and more than 100 wounded in Iraq car bomb attacks that presaged the wave of violence in May.

Training Iraqis

Bush insisted that the U.S. was making progress in training Iraqi security forces, saying at a May 31 news conference that 40,000 ``well trained'' Iraqi police and soldiers had deployed throughout Baghdad to control ``frustrated and desperate'' insurgents.

The same day, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, at the United Nations in New York, said the U.S. ``numbers and charts'' on Iraqi forces mask continuing problems with leadership and performance. Insurgents had killed more than 700 Iraqi civilians and police in a month of heightened bombings and ambushes. ``It's very important to accelerate the training,'' Zebari said.

Death Toll

So far this month, more than 62 Iraqis were killed and 107 wounded in attacks in Baghdad alone, according to reports from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. Outside Baghdad in the same time period, U.S. forces suffered more than 55 casualties in a series of bombings and firefights with insurgents.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday on the ``Fox News Sunday'' program that the insurgency ``could go on for any number of years.'' It will be up to Iraqi security forces, not the U.S. military, to finally quell the violence, he said.

Like the president, he refused to set a schedule for any withdrawals of U.S. troops.

A CNN/USA Today poll released June 20 showed 59 percent of Americans want at least a partial withdrawal of the 135,000 U.S. troops there, and a New York Times/CBS poll said 51 percent of Americans think invading Iraq was a mistake.

In recent remarks, Bush has added notes of caution to his remarks on the Iraqis progress toward securing the country. ``Difficult and dangerous work remains,'' he told the U.S. Naval Academy's graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Maryland on May 27.

Still, he says he's staying the course. ``There is reason to be optimistic,'' Bush said June 24 after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari at the White House.

To contact the reporters on this story: William Roberts in Washington at wroberts@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 27, 2005 00:01 EDT