Bush: American people “tired of war” in Iraq

US President George W Bush on Wednesday acknowledged that people were ‘tired of the war’ in Iraq, but insisted that the conflict was winnable and the security situation improving.’There’s war fatigue in America. It’s affecting our psychology,’ Bush said at a press conference at the White House. ‘This is an ugly war … It doesn’t surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people.’

Bush said that there had been ‘measurable’ progress in improving security in parts of Baghdad, Anbar and Diyala provinces and said he would continue to veto any effort by the US Congress to place a deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.

‘I cannot look a mother and father of a troop in the eye and say, ‘I’m sending your kid into combat, but I don’t think we can achieve the objective,” Bush said. ‘I believe we can succeed, and I believe we are making security progress that will enable the political track to succeed as well.’

The White House on Thursday released an interim report on progress in Iraq which found that security benchmarks laid out by Congress had shown improvement, but found little progress in political reconciliation.

Bush insisted he would wait until a September report from military commanders in Iraq before considering any change of course.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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