PANAMA CITY, Florida (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Saturday he supported the right of Muslims to build a cultural center near the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City but would not comment on the “wisdom” of such a move.

Obama’s comments came after his remarks at a White House event on Friday in which he appeared to offer his backing for the construction of a center called Cordoba House near the site known as “Ground Zero” in lower Manhattan.

Americans in both political parties, including many New Yorkers, object to the project.

Obama’s comments on Friday drew criticism from conservatives and others, and the president sought to clarify them during a trip to Florida on Saturday.

“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there,” Obama told reporters while visiting the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”

On Friday, Obama said he believed Muslims had the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in the country.

, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Declaring Gulf Coast beaches “open for business,” U.S. President Barack Obama visited Florida on Saturday and pledged to restore the economy and the environment of the region damaged by the BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (BP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) oil spill.

Obama, on his fifth visit to the region since BP’s deep-sea well in the Gulf of Mexico ruptured on April 20, held talks with local business owners to hear their concerns about the impact of the world’s worst offshore oil spill.

“I will not be satisfied until the environment has been restored, no matter how long it takes,” he told reporters after the meeting.

The president and his family are on a weekend trip to Panama City as part of a drive to encourage more tourists to visit Florida’s famous white sand beaches, which have suffered only minor damage from the spill, mostly in the form of scattered tar balls and small oil patches.

“I also want to point out that as a result of the cleanup effort, beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean and safe and open for business,” he said.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For full spill coverage link.reuters.com/hed87k

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Friday backed construction of a proposed mosque and Muslim cultural center near the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York — a project opposed by U.S. conservatives and many New Yorkers.

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said at an event attended by diplomats from Islamic countries and members of the U.S. Muslim community.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he said.

Earlier this month a New York city agency cleared the way for construction of the center, which will include a prayer room, two blocks from the site of the September 11 attacks, popularly known as “Ground Zero.”

“This is America and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,” said Obama, who has made improving ties between the United States and the Muslim world a cornerstone of his foreign policy.

About 2,750 people were killed on September 11 when hijackers from the Muslim militant group al Qaeda crashed two passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, an event that traumatized Americans and sparked the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the Bush Administration’s “war on terror.”

Families of those killed in the attacks have mounted an emotional campaign to block the mosque, saying it would be a betrayal of the memory of the victims.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials gave an upbeat assessment of the situation in Iraq on Wednesday, despite Iraqi politicians’ failure to form a government five months after elections and a sharp rise in civilian deaths in July.

“Iraq is on a positive trajectory,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, told journalists at the White House.

He was speaking on a day in which insurgents killed eight Iraqi soldiers in northern Diyala province and two policemen in Baghdad, the latest assaults on Iraqi security forces as U.S. troops prepare to end their combat mission on August 31.

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, briefed Obama and his National Security Council on Wednesday, telling the president that July was the third least violent month in Iraq since January 2004.

Washington acknowledges the continued violence but stresses it has fallen sharply since the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006-2007, when thousands of Iraqis were killed in bloodletting between majority Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims.

As Iraqis began observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, U.S. officials said they expected an uptick in violence with al Qaeda insurgents trying to exploit the failure of political factions to agree on a new government after a parliamentary election in March.

Sectarian violence erupted after Iraq’s 2005 parliamentary election, when politicians took more than five months to negotiate a new government.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials gave an upbeat assessment of the situation in Iraq on Wednesday, despite Iraqi politicians’ failure to form a government five months after elections and a sharp rise in civilian deaths in July.

“Iraq is on a positive trajectory,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, told journalists at the White House.

He was speaking on a day in which insurgents killed eight Iraqi soldiers in northern Diyala province and two policemen in Baghdad, the latest assaults on Iraqi security forces as U.S. troops prepare to end their combat mission on August 31.

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, briefed Obama and his National Security Council on Wednesday, telling the president that July was the third least violent month in Iraq since January 2004.

Washington acknowledges the continued violence but stresses it has fallen sharply since the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006-2007, when thousands of Iraqis were killed in bloodletting between majority Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims.

As Iraqis began observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, U.S. officials said they expected an uptick in violence with al Qaeda insurgents trying to exploit the failure of political factions to agree on a new government after a parliamentary election in March.

Sectarian violence erupted after Iraq’s 2005 parliamentary election, when politicians took more than five months to negotiate a new government.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – President Barack Obama attacked the economic policies of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush in Bush’s home state on Monday as evidence of the way Republicans would operate if given power in November 2 U.S. congressional elections.

At the first of two Texas fund-raising events for Democrats, Obama defended his repeated references to Bush’s policies, saying they are necessary to remind Americans of the weak economy he inherited from Bush in January 2009.

“The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future, do we really want to go back to that or do we keep moving our country forward?” Obama said, referring to Bush’s eight years as president.

In reminding voters about the policies of the unpopular Bush, Obama is trying to protect his fellow Democrats’ majorities in Congress and limit anticipated Republican gains.

On November 2, voters will choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 37 members of the 100-seat Senate.

Republicans say they doubt Obama’s effort to cite Bush as a reason to vote against them in November will work because Americans are more concerned about getting or keeping a job.

“When we talk about this ‘going back’ thing, I notice that some Republicans say, ‘Well, he just wants to bash the previous administration, he’s looking backwards.’ … No, no, no. The reason we’re focused on it is because the other side isn’t offering anything new,” Obama said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – BP’s use of dispersant chemicals on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is sparking questions from a U.S. congressional panel, which says the company used more of these compounds than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had directed.

But the EPA indicated in a statement on Sunday that the difference between what the agency directed and what BP and the U.S. Coast Guard achieved is slight — the difference between a 75 percent cut in dispersant use and a 72 percent cut.

The environmental agency acknowledged, however, that the use of dispersants is “always a difficult decision.”

Environmental advocates have raised concerns about the use of dispersants to break up oil from the BP spill, on the grounds that the reddish bits of dispersant-treated oil may harm wildlife in the water column between the mile-deep well-head and the Gulf’s surface.

Representative Ed Markey, who chairs the House of Representatives subcommittee on energy and environment, said in a letter to retired U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander overseeing the spill cleanup, that more information is needed on BP’s dispersant use.

At the heart of the questions is a May 26 directive from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and then-on-scene coordinator Admiral Mary Landry, making the use of dispersants a last resort and ordering BP to cut the use of these chemicals by 75 percent from a peak of 70,000 gallons (260,000 liters) used on May 24.

EPA said on Sunday that from the time the directive was issued, dispersant use dropped 72 percent from its peak usage.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Saturday accused Republicans of holding American small businesses “hostage to politics” after Republican senators refused to back a $30 billion small-business lending package.

Senate Republicans blocked the package on Thursday, dealing a fresh blow to Obama’s efforts to show Americans, in the midst of a tough election year, that his administration is focused on tackling stubbornly high unemployment.

With opinion polls showing eroding support for Obama’s handling of the economy, Democrats fear voters will punish them for the 9.5 percent unemployment rate come November, when 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 37 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be in play in mid-term elections.

“I’m calling on the Republican leaders in the Senate to stop holding America’s small businesses hostage to politics, and allow an up-or-down vote on this small business jobs bill,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

“Understand, a majority of senators support the plan. It’s just that the Republican leaders in the Senate won’t even allow it to come up for a vote,” he said.

Democratic leaders failed on Thursday to muster the 60 votes needed to advance the measure over Republican objections.

Republicans are upset that Democrats shut them out during discussions to amend the package, which they say is another example of Obama’s overreach in government spending.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Iraq’s politicians, still unable to agree on a new government, to “get on with the business of governing” as U.S. troops prepare to end their combat mission.

Despite the deadlock in Baghdad, the U.S. military has kept its withdrawal timetable on track. It is due to reduce the size of its forces in Iraq to 50,000 troops by August 31, when they will formally move to a more advisory role supporting Iraq’s security forces.

“By the end of 2011, all of America’s forces will leave Iraq, and its security will be wholly in the hands of its government and its people,” Biden told members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, at a ceremony at Fort Drum in New York as he welcomed them home from Iraq.

Biden said 1 million U.S. service members, including his own son, had been deployed in support of the Iraq war effort and had enabled Iraq to hold two successful elections.

“Now their political leaders must fulfill their responsibility and get on with the business of governing,” he said in one of the biggest speeches on Iraq by an Obama administration official.

But Iraq appeared no closer to a new government on Wednesday as lawmakers called off a scheduled session of parliament after political factions said they needed more time to decide on cabinet posts.

Senior members of the administration have been speaking more forcefully in recent weeks about the need for Iraq’s squabbling Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions to put aside their differences and form a government, nearly five months after parliamentary elections were held in March.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the face of stubbornly high unemployment and grim poll numbers, the White House is struggling to find a workable strategy for selling President Barack Obama’s economic successes to voters.

The White House has launched “Recovery Summer,” whose central message to Americans appears to be, “We know you’re still suffering, but things could have been worse.”

In an event aimed at reminding voters of the administration’s earlier successes, Obama will visit auto plants in Michigan on Friday to tout the thousands of jobs that were saved in his taxpayer bailout of automakers in 2009.

But, with millions of Americans still out of work, voters are in no mood to give Obama credit for past achievements even though many economists agree his $862 billion stimulus package was crucial in turning around the economy after the 2007-2009 financial meltdown under his predecessor George W. Bush.

Economists and political analysts say Obama will struggle between now and congressional midterm elections in November to change Americans’ perceptions when the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent and house and stock prices have yet to regain their pre-crisis levels.

The White House’s focus on selling the benefits of Obama’s stimulus measures enacted in 2009 is a sign that it accepts there is little new it can do to quickly bring down the high unemployment rate.

“There is not a heck of a lot he can do other than to say if we hadn’t done this, things would have been worse,” said Stephen Wayne, a professor of American government at Georgetown University who is completing a book on Obama.