By: President Bush said Tuesday there will be "more tough fighting ahead" in Iraq, but denied claims that the nation is in the grips of a civil war.
"The Iraqis had a chance to fall apart and they didn't," he said at a news conference.
He said the decision about when to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq will fall to future presidents and Iraqi leaders, suggesting that U.S. involvement will continue at least through 2008.
Acknowledging the public's growing unease with the war -- and election-year skittishness among fellow Republicans -- the president nonetheless vowed to keep U.S. soldiers in the fight.
"If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't put those kids there," Bush declared.
He also stood by embattled Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"I don't believe he should resign. He's done a fine job. Every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy," he said.
The second-full blown news conference of the year marked a new push by Bush to confront doubts about his strategy in Iraq. A day earlier, he acknowledged to a sometimes-skeptical audience that there was dwindling support for his Iraq policy and that he understood why people were disheartened.
"The terrorists haven't given up. They're tough-minded. They like to kill," he said Tuesday. "There will be more tough fighting ahead."
Bush said he agreed to U.S. talks with Iran to underscore his point that Tehran's attempts to spread sectarian violence or provide support to Iraqi insurgents was unacceptable to the United States.
His opening remarks were designed to steel Americans for more fighting in Iraq and put an optimistic spin on the state of the U.S. economy.
"Productivity is strong. Inflation is contained. Household net worth is at an all-time high," Bush said, crediting his administration's policies.
On Iraq, Bush bristled at a suggestion that he wanted to wage war against that country since early in his presidency.
"I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong ... with all due respect," he told a reporter. "No president wants war." To those who say otherwise, "It's simply not true," Bush said.
More than 2,300 Americans have died in three years of war in Iraq. Polls show the public's support of the war and Bush himself have dramatically declined in recent months.
Asked about former supporters who now oppose him and the war, Bush said he's trying to win them over by "talking realistically to people" about the war and its importance to the nation.
"I can understand how Americans are worried about whether or not we can win," Bush said, adding that most Americans want victory "but they're concerned about whether or not we can win."
The president said he did not agree with former interim Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, who told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday, "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
Bush said others inside and outside Iraq think the nation has stopped short of civil war. "There are other voices coming out of Iraq, by the way, other than Mr. Allawi, who I know by the way -- like. A good fellow."
"We all recognized that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence. But the way I look at the situation is, the Iraqis looked and decided not to go into civil war," he said.
Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70% of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll.
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