WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush praised Japan's cooperation in the campaign against terrorism Friday, the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.
"Today our two navies are working side by side in the fight against terror. The bitterness of 60 years ago has passed away," Bush said in a speech to commemorate the anniversary of Japan's 1941 attack.
"Today we take special pride that one of our former enemies is now among America's finest friends. We're grateful to our ally, Japan, and to its people," Bush said aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Enterprise at the naval base in Norfolk, Va.
"The struggles of our war in the Pacific now belong to history," said Bush, who compared the nation's 1941 shift from shaken vulnerability to iron resolve to the response to Sept. 11 strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Japan has sent a Maritime Self-Defense Force fleet to the Indian Ocean to provide logistic support for the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.
In Japan's raid on Dec. 7, 1941, using nearly 400 aircraft launched at sea, five U.S. ships were sunk, three destroyers were wrecked and around 2,400 U.S. servicemen were killed.