Bush warns Democrats: Do not ‘test my will’ on war bill

CAMP DAVID, Maryland, Saturday (AFP) - Despite growing criticism of US policy in Iraq, President George W. Bush has warned Democrats not to “test my will” after he vetoes a bill withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

Bush invited Democrats and leaders of his Republican Party to discuss a way out of their standoff soon after he strikes down the bill, approved by Congress this week, which ties 124 billion dollars in war funds to a troop withdrawal that would start on October 1.

President Bush

But he pledged to strike down any subsequent attempt by the Democratic-led Congress to set a deadline for a pullout.“If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept the timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one,” he told a news conference at his retreat in Camp David, Maryland, Friday.

“So if they want to try again that which I have said was unacceptable, then of course I'll veto it,” Bush said. “But I hope it doesn't come to that. I believe we can work a way forward.

And I think we can come to our senses and make sure that we get the money to the troops in a timely fashion,” he said. The bill passed 218-208 in the House of Representatives on Wednesday and 51-46 in the Senate on Thursday and has a non-binding target of completing the troop pullout by March 31, 2008.

Bush could veto the legislation early next week with the aim of quickly getting a new bill on his desk acceptable to both sides as soon as possible to provide the money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The showdown between Bush and Congress comes in the context of Americans' mounting disapproval of the four-year-old war and Bush's strategy to deploy additional troops to Iraq to quell violence bordering on civil war.

The New York Times reported today the Bush administration did not plan to make its first formal assessment of whether a US troop “surge” now under way in Iraq is producing results until September. Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said many top Bush advisers now anticipated that even by then any gains will be limited.

The Democrats regained control of Congress in November elections largely on voter anger over the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 on the basis of now discredited intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and the violence that has cost more than 3,300 US lives.