LANCASTER, Pa. – Barack Obama says the United States is engaged in a “war on terror” – using the same wording as President Bush to describe the global battle against Islamic extremists.
In his first sit-down interview with Bill O’Reilly of “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News Channel, Obama said he absolutely” believes the United States is fighting a war on terror.
Obama said the enemy was “al Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America, who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam.”
Many Democrats reject the use of the term, which the administration has used to argue for a global conflict that extends beyond national boundaries, and includes the war in Iraq, which Obama opposed and called a “dumb war.”
The much anticipated interview was months in the making -after repeated requests from O’Reilly, who even trailed Obama at a rally in Nashua, NH, earlier this year to make his appeal in person – and winding up in a shoving match with a campaign aide.
Despite talk of bad blood between the Democratic nominee and the broadcaster, Obama seemed positively upbeat after Thursday’s sitdown with O’Reilly.
Asked how it went, Obama replied, “It was great.”
During the interview, Obama also called Iran a “major threat,” and said it would be “unacceptable” for the regime to develop a nuclear weapon.
“It’s sufficient to say I would not take military action off the table, and that I will never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect the homeland and the United States’ interests.”
But Obama has said repeatedly that he favors diplomacy as a first course of action.
Obama also warned against the current US administration lumping radical Islamic groups together.
“They have fueled a whole host of terrorist organizations,” Obama said of Iran, but “we have to have the ability to distinguish between groups . . . They may not all be part and parcel of the same ideology.”
Obama also said President Bush’s surge of troops into Iraq – which Obama initially opposed – “has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated.
“I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”
Before his “O’Reilly Factor” debut, Obama spent Thursday campaigning through rural Pennsylvania, a swing state that is critical victory.
He toured a factory in York, where he continued to pound on the Republicans for stressing biography over issues.
“I understand that they don’t have much of an agenda to run on, but I think the American people deserve more than the same old vitriol that we’ve seen the last couple of days,” he said.
He then headed to Lancaster, west of Philadelphia, where a long line of voters stretched around the block to catch Obama at an evening event.