ST. LOUIS (AP) -- President Bush is working to win support from those who question his handling of the war and reconstruction of Iraq, saying the fight is essential to the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

"Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York or St. Louis or Los Angeles," Bush said Tuesday as the number of Americans who have died in postwar Iraq topped the death toll during major combat.

Bush is getting criticized from the left and the right over continued instability in Iraq and resistance from loyalists of Saddam Hussein and the foreign terrorists he says are streaming into the country.

The United States also has received scant support for a new U.N. resolution that would encourage more nations to join the mostly U.S. and British troops who are trying to keep the peace in Iraq.

Still, Bush appeared resolute Tuesday before a mostly gray-haired audience of 6,000 at the American Legion's 85th national conference in St. Louis.

"Our only goal, our only option, is total victory in the war on terror," said Bush, who received a standing ovation when he appeared on stage. "And this nation will press on to victory."

He faces tenuous situations on several international fronts.

U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan are meeting resistance from increasingly well-organized Taliban fighters. Renewed violence between the Israelis and Palestinians is threatening the U.S.-brokered road map for peace. Reconstruction efforts in Iraq suffered a devastating blow with last week's deadly bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

Bush declared major combat finished in Iraq on May 1. Since then, 140 U.S. troops have died there, including two Tuesday -- one in a roadside bombing and the other a traffic accident. On May 1, the toll was 138.

Although weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found in Iraq, Bush insisted that the United States was right to invade the country. It led to the removal of a brutal dictatorship that built, possessed and used deadly weapons, sponsored terror and persecuted its people, he said.

Bush said progress was being made there and in Afghanistan. He noted that more than 40 of the most-wanted Iraqi leaders have been captured or killed, including Saddam's two sons.

Nearly 200 military raids have been carried out and more than 8,200 tons of ammunition, and thousands of AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons have been seized since May 1, the president said.

In Afghanistan, nearly two-thirds of al-Qaida's senior leadership has either been captured or killed. Roads are being built, medical clinics are opening and young girls are making their first trips to school.

While the president was in St. Louis, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, was at the White House discussing the situation in Iraq with Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser.

In an interview appearing in Wednesday's editions of The Washington Post, Bremer said Iraq would need "several tens of billions" of dollars from abroad to help rebuild its infrastructure and revive its economy.

The trip to St. Louis was Bush's 12th presidential stop in Missouri, a swing state in next year's election that he narrowly won in 2000.

Not wanting to be drowned out in his home state, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, a Democratic presidential hopeful, said Bush needed to ask the international community for help in Iraq.

"If we're going to succeed in winning the peace in Iraq, we're going to have to have help," Gephardt said.

Before the St. Louis appearance, Bush raised $1.4 million for his re-election effort at a luncheon in St. Paul, Minn. The amount brought the total in his campaign coffers to more than $55 million.

Later in St. Louis, he helped raise nearly $1 million for Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., who is up for re-election next year.

Bush planned a quiet day at his Texas ranch Wednesday.

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