Bush Says Iraq Attacks Don't Rise to Level of Major Combat:
"President Bush said today that despite the deadly attack on an American helicopter on Sunday, the United States was no longer involved in major combat in Iraq. And he insisted that Saddam Hussein is no longer a danger."

Asked whether United States forces were again engaged in "major combat operations," — which he declared over on May 1 — Mr. Bush said that they were not. "We're back to finding these terrorists and bringing them to justice," the president said in Harbison Canyon, Calif., where he toured areas swept by wildfires. "And we will stay the course," he added. "We will do our job."

The president was asked for his reaction to the death of 15 soldiers (the Pentagon revised the toll down from 16 today) in a helicopter that was shot down on Sunday near Falluja, Iraq. "I am saddened any time that there's a loss of life," he said. The White House has been visibly struggling with how to address the loss of American life in Iraq and has apparently decided, at least for now, to refer only in general terms to the dead, who now number more than 135 since Mr. Bush's May 1 declaration.

Asked whether his administration was trying to speed up the transfer of power to Iraqis, Mr. Bush said there were now more than 70,000 Iraqis engaged in police and border-security work and in creating a new army. "That has been our mission all along, to develop the conditions such that a free Iraq will emerge, run by the Iraqi citizens," Mr. Bush said.

The president said that despite reports that the fugitive Saddam Hussein might be behind some of the recent attacks on American troops, he was no longer a menace.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/politics/04CND-BUSH.html