SAN JOSE, Nov. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The re-election process of US President George W. Bush is being endangered by repeated attacks against US forces deployed in Iraq, a US expert on Arab issues told Costa Rica's newspaper National on Sunday.

    The present troubling situation in Iraq and repeated insurgent attacks against US soldiers are threatening Bush's re-election process in November next year, said Husein Ibish, director of Communications of Arabian-American Committee against Discrimination.

    The US forces' military occupation in Iraq is an important factor affecting next year's presidential election, despite the fact that Bush's re-election is heavily dependent on whether the US economy gains steam.

    The Iraq war might be a potential tragedy for those who started the war as all excuses leading to the war are based on illusive information, he said, adding that those people are losing credibility for they failed to show weapons of mass destruction inIraq and to prove the ties between the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime and the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.

    Ibish recalled that the United States once paid dearly when some US leaders brought the country into meaningless wars like theVietnam war.

    On the future of Iraq, Ibish said the saying that the main purpose of the Iraq war is to promote democracy in the Middle East is only illusions of some "new conservatives" in the United States.

    The latest accident involving US forces is a crash of two US helicopters in northern Iraq Saturday killing 12 coalition soldiers, which brings the death toll of US soldiers to more than 50 this month.

    Facing the mounting security pressure in Iraq, the United States has decided to shift the security responsibility to the Iraqis to reduce US casualties before next year's presidential election by selecting a transitional government in Iraq earlier than scheduled. Enditem