Bush vows to 'stay in the fight' in Iraq

US President George W. Bush vowed yesterday "we will stay in the fight" until victory in Iraq, rejected critics' calls for a troop pullout timetable and insisted progress is being made in Baghdad.

Amid turmoil in Washington over Iraq and waning American support for the war, Bush held fast to his open-ended commitment in Iraq, saying US troops would stay until Iraqi forces could defend themselves.

Bush's remarks amounted to a response to one of the most hawkish Democrats in Congress, Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha, who urged the administration on Thursday to pull US forces out as soon as it could be done safely, estimating that it would take about six months.

Bush quoted a top US commander in Iraq, Major-General William Webster, as saying that setting a deadline for withdrawal would be "a recipe for disaster", and said that, as long as he was president, "our strategy in Iraq will be driven by the sober judgment of our military commanders on the ground".

Murtha, dismissed by the White House as a liberal like Fahrenheit 911 filmmaker Michael Moore, was unbowed. Bush described Iraq, as he has in the past, as a pivotal battle in the war against Islamic radicals he said want to use Iraq as a launching pad toward a totalitarian empire stretching from Spain to Indonesia.

With Iraqi elections due next month, Bush said there was cause for optimism. In the two and a half years since Saddam Hussein was toppled, he said, Iraqis had elected a transitional government, ratified a constitution and were ready to vote on a permanent government.

Many Democrats have called on Bush to present a plan to end the war and an estimate of when US forces can start to be withdrawn based on conditions on the ground. Only a few have called for a set timetable for withdrawal.

Murtha's opposition broadened a partisan divide in Washington and prompted the Republican-led House of Representatives to engineer a vote on Friday on a resolution to pull US troops immediately from Iraq.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll last week said 63 per cent of Americans oppose Bush's handling of the Iraq war, and 52 per cent say troops should be pulled out now or within 12 months.