Bush renews pledge to veto war funding bill with withdrawal deadline

U.S. President George W. Bush renewed his pledge on Tuesday to veto a war funding bill that includes a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

"I've made it clear for weeks that if either the House or Senate version of this bill comes to my desk, I will veto it," Bush said at a White House press conference.

Both the Senate and the House have passes bills that would provide money for this year's U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and set a timetable for the Bush administration to pull combat troops out of Iraq.

The bill approved by the Senate last week requires Bush to start withdrawal within 120 days after

its becomes law, and aims to pull out all combat forces by March 31, 2008. The House measure asks the president to bring most combat troops home by Aug. 31 next year.

Bush accuses congressional Democrats of "substituting the judgment of politicians in Washington for the judgment of our commanders on the ground, setting an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, and spending billions of dollars on pork-barrel projects completely unrelated to the war."

"Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq," he said.

He urged Congress to send the "unacceptable" bill as quickly as possible so he could veto it and Congress could "get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without delay."

Bush said the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq was producing an impact.

"The reinforcements we've sent to Baghdad are having an impact. They're making a difference," he said.

Bush announced early this year of sending over 20,000 additional American soldiers to Iraq, to help fight sectarian violence in the war-ravaged country. The move, however, has met strong resistance from Democratic-controlled Congress.

According to Bush, two of the five additional U.S. Army brigades being sent to Iraq were operating in Baghdad, and a third brigade was moving from Kuwait and would be fully operational in Baghdad in the coming weeks. The remaining two brigades would deploy in Iraq in April and May.

"As more of those reinforcements arrive in the months ahead, their impact will continue to grow," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday that the U.S. military was maintaining a troop level of 20 combat brigades in Iraq, and with additional troops rotating into Iraq, the buildup would continue at that level through August 2007.

Currently there are about 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and over 3,200 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the war started in March 2003. When all the additional troops were deployed, the total of U.S. troops in Iraq would reach about 160,000.

Source: Xinhua