With the Iraq war raging and that country in disarray, some criticized Bush's effort to refocus attention on his "freedom agenda" - the byproduct of the president's promise to predicate US relations with all nations on their treatment of their citizens and to advance democracy in every corner of the globe.

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"The reality is the initiative is in disarray," said Grant Aldonas, an international business scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Commerce Department undersecretary in Bush's first term. "Following the outcome of Iraq postwar, when you travel the world, people react with cynicism when you talk about freedom and democracy at this point."

Bush's message is typically better received in small, newer democracies. The Czech Republic, for instance, has deployed troops to help support the US-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush was invited to make the speech as part of a conference on democracy hosted by Natan Sharansky, a former prisoner of the Soviet Union who has continued to champion freedom, and former Czech President Vaclav Havel. The president also plans to meet with current and former dissidents from around the world.

From Prague, Bush was to travel to Germany's Baltic Sea resort town of Heiligendamm for three days of meetings between the leaders of the world's eight major industrialized democracies. The rest of his eight-day European trip was to include a stop in Poland - also a proposed site for part of the missile defense system - as well as visits to Italy, Albania and Bulgaria.

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