 Bush, along with Vice President Dick Cheney and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, continually used the term afterwards to describe the Iraq War, stressing that the freedoms of the Iraqi people were at stake and that al-Qaeda would "use Iraq as an example of defeating freedom and democracy" if the United States were to withdraw.However, the phrase was eventually dropped by Bush two weeks before the 2006 U.S. midterm elections, due to continual pressure to change his Iraq War strategy.Tony Snow has stated that this only meant that the United States needed to adjust its strategy in Iraq, and that it was not a sign of any major changes in policy.