U.S. President George W. Bush insisted Thursday that he saw political, security and economic gains in Iraq, trying to push back the Congress' criticism that the Iraqi politicians are not making progress.
"They (the Iraqis) got their budget passed. Sometimes it takes our Congress a while to get its budget passed," Bush said in a speech at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
"They're trying to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny, in a region of the world that has been hostile to freedom. And they're doing it while under assault from one of history's most brutal terrorist networks," he added.
"When it takes time for Iraqis to reach agreement, it is not foot-dragging, as one senator described it during Congress' two-week Easter recess. It is a revolutionary undertaking that requires great courage," said Bush, who frequently mocked the Democratic-controlled Congress throughout the speech.
He accused the Congress of trying to encourage progress in Baghdad by "hectoring". "Hectoring was not what the Iraqi leaders needed," he added.
Last week, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in an interview with CNN there has been too much "foot-dragging on key governance questions in Iraq" and that putting off troop withdrawals would only exacerbate it.
The president is making the speech when he is ready to endorse a proposal by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, who wants to "freeze" further troop withdrawal from Iraq for several months after the completion of the planned withdrawal of five combat brigades in July.
Bush injected the five brigades into Iraq in January last year in a plan called as the "surge" to quell violence.
When the "surge" runs out of its course in July, the five brigades are due to go back to the United States.
But the Bush administration remains uncommitted on further withdrawal. In Thursday's speech, Bush reiterated that he wouldn't yield on the issue.
"No matter what shortcomings these critics diagnose, their prescription is always the same: retreat," he said.
"If America's strategic interests are not in Iraq, the convergence point for the twin threats of al-Qaida and Iran, the nation Osama bin Laden's deputy has called the place for the greatest battle, the country at the heart of the most volatile region on earth, then where are they?" the president said.
Source:Xinhua
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