After fiercely defending his Iraq policy across Asia, US President Bush abruptly toned down his attack on war critics Sunday and said there was nothing unpatriotic about opposing his strategy.

"People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were "reprehensible."

The president also praised Rep. John Murtha as "a fine man" and a strong supporter of the military despite the congressman's call for troop withdrawal as soon as possible.

Bush brought up the growing Iraq debate when he met reporters after inconclusive talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao about friction in U.S.-China relations.

Thousands of miles from home, Bush and other White House officials have not let a day go by without a tough counterattack against Democratic critics of the president's Iraq policies. But the president replaced the no-holds-barred approach with a softer tone Sunday.

"I heard somebody say, `Well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position.' I totally reject that thought," Bush said.

"This is not an issue of who's patriotic and who's not patriotic," he said. "It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq."

The Iraq war has undercut Americans' confidence in Bush's credibility and his response to terrorism and has helped drop his approval rating to the lowest point of his presidency. Nearly 2,100 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

Bush came to the defense of Murtha, the hawkish congressman who has been denounced by Republicans for advocating withdrawal. Bush's own spokesman had compared the combat-decorated Vietnam veteran to war critic-movie producer Michael Moore and suggested Murtha was counseling surrender to terrorists.

On Sunday, Bush called Murtha a "fine man and a good man."

"I know the decision to call for the immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done in a careful and thoughtful way," the president said. "I disagree with his position."

Murtha told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday he hoped the administration would take his proposal seriously and the president would "get a few of us to the White House and talk to us about this very difficult problem which the whole nation wants to solve with a bipartisan manner."

Source: CD/Agencies