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Bush: Iraq pullout not an option

President George W. Bush said yesterday that pulling out of Iraq now is not an option, rejecting calls by some lawmakers and polls indicating many Americans are growing weary of the war.

"The terrorists and insurgents are trying to get us to retreat. Their goal is to get us to leave before Iraqis have had a chance to show the region what a government that is elected and truly accountable to its citizens can do for its people," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "We will settle for nothing less than victory" over insurgents there, he said later.

About six in 10 in a Gallup poll taken in early June said the US should withdraw some or all of its troops -- the highest level of support for withdrawing US troops since the war began.

The president's Iraq policy that has taken a big slide in the polls. Once a mainstay of his public support, his handling of the Iraq war was backed by only 41 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month -- his lowest level of support yet on Iraq.

"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror," he said. "This mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight."

Amid continuing attacks and suicide bombings in Iraq, a few Republicans and Democrats -- including one GOP lawmaker who voted for war in Iraq -- introduced a resolution this week calling for Bush to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq by Oct. 1, 2006. There have been nearly 1,100 violent deaths in Iraq linked to the insurgency since a transitional government took office seven weeks ago.

The administration insists no timetable can be set for bringing US forces home from Iraq until enough Iraqi forces have been sufficiently trained to take over the fight against the insurgency. Anything else, the administration argues, would only embolden the insurgency.
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