He vowed, as he has done repeatedly, to resist calls to withdraw from Iraq, referring to the number of US soldiers who have died there.
'I'm going to make you this promise: I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done,' he told the troops there.
'Our country will not run in the face of thugs and assassins,' Bush told soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of the battle- tried Army's 82nd Airborne Division and US Army special operations command.
'By achieving victory in Iraq, we will help to build a free nation in the heart of a troubled region and support democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran,' Bush said.
The 2,527 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the invasion three years ago to oust Saddam Hussein. In the same period, more than 30,000 civilians have also been killed, according to Bush's own estimates, with dozens killed in a market place bombing by insurgents this week alone and increasing violence directed at members of the newly formed Iraqi government.
Bush said developing democracy in Iraq was in the US national interest in the global fight against terrorism.
He compared the fight there to the American revolutionary war 230 years ago that ousted British colonizers, fought by a ragtag army of citizen soldiers under General George Washington.
'Without the courage of the soldiers of our Continental Army, the words of the Declaration (of Independence) would have been forgotten by history, dismissed as the radical musings of a failed revolution,' he said.
Bush said that 43 million Americans have fought for their country in wars since then.
'We live in liberty because of the courage they displayed - from Bunker Hill to Baghdad, from Concord to Kabul - on this Independence Day we honor their achievements and we thank them for their service in freedom's cause,' bush said.
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