Bush hits Democrats on Iraq, takes fire

[Ron Burgundy]

Reuters - President George W. Bush vowed on Saturday to stick with the war in Iraq and Democrats said they would fight for a new course in the conflict in a final weekend of campaigning ahead of Tuesday elections in which control of Congress is at stake.



GREELEY, Colo. (Reuters) - President George W. Bush vowed on Saturday to stick with the war in Iraq and Democrats said they would fight for a new course in the conflict in the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday elections in which control of the U.S. Congress is at stake.


"I understand the consequences of retreat," Bush told thousands of Republican loyalists at a rally. "That's why we'll support our troops, that's why we'll fight in Iraq, and that's why we'll win in Iraq."

He was unfazed by a heckler at the rally for Colorado Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (news, bio, voting record)'s re-election bid. "Get out of Iraq," the heckler shouted from a perch on a tractor before he was hustled out.

Democrats, feeling good about their chances of seizing the Republican-led House of Representatives and possibly the Senate as well, said it was time for a change.

"We will fight for a new direction in Iraq to change the president's failed course so that our troops can finally come home," said House Democratic candidate Lois Murphy of Pennsylvania in her party's weekly radio address.

The unpopular Iraq war has been the leading factor in the election campaign and there are alarm bells ringing for Republican candidates.

A Newsweek poll released on Saturday said 54 percent of likely voters would vote for Democratic candidates and 38 percent for the Republicans. Bush's approval rating was 35 percent in the poll, which was taken on Thursday and Friday and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report said Republicans would be lucky to limit their losses in the House to 20 to 25 seats and four or five seats in the Senate. Democrats need 15 seats to command the House and six in the Senate.

"But the chances of this thing going bigger -- far bigger -- still exist, and there are quite a few veteran Republican strategists ... who are bracing themselves for that distinct possibility," report author Charlie Cook said on his Web site.

PAPERS SAY RUMSFELD MUST GO

Bush has sought to boost Republican turnout by defending the Iraq war and accusing Democrats of lacking a plan to win it. Making the war a central theme is a political gamble given deep American unease about it. He has had the sprawling U.S. military community largely behind him in the war.

But several newspapers widely read by U.S. military personnel called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over Iraq, rejecting Bush's stated plan to retain Rumsfeld for the remaining two years of his presidency.

"Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised," the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times said in an editorial to be published on Monday.

The newspapers are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co. Inc., which also publishes USA Today.

White House spokesman Tony Snow called the editorial "a shabby piece of work," and said Bush's reaction "was just to shrug it off."

Snow said the editorial gave a "false impression" it was the sentiment of military personnel rather than of editorial writers for the Gannett newspaper chain.

Democrats quickly seized on the editorial.

"The American people deserve a new direction from a secretary of defense who won't listen to his generals on the ground and a White House that won't listen to reason," said Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Vice President Dick Cheney told a campaign rally in Laramie, Wyoming, on Saturday that a Democratic congressional majority would mean higher taxes.

"If the Democrats take control, American families would face an immense tax increase, and the economy would sustain a major hit," he said.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Caren Bohan)