Bush rejects Iraq pullout call
Foreign Desk Report

OSAN (South Korea)—U.S. President George W. Bush vowed on Saturday “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 U.S. 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 Rep. John Murtha, who urged the administration on Thursday to pull out U.S. forces as soon as it could be done safely, estimating that it would take about six months. Bush quoted a top U.S. 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.” “We will fight the terrorists in Iraq, we will stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory that our brave troops have fought for,” he said.