US President George W. Bush on Tuesday promised cheering supporters that he would not risk "reversible" gains in Iraq with a troop withdrawal plan tied to the November US elections.
"I want to assure you -- just like I assure military families and the troops -- the politics of 2008 is not going to enter into my calculation, it is the peace of years to come that will enter into my calculation," he pledged to a Christian broadcasters association.
Bush made no mention of just-begun talks in Baghdad aimed at forging a long-term security partnership deal between the United States and Iraq by July, well before the US president's term ends in January 2009.
The president's Democratic foes have denounced the potential pact as an effort to tie his successor's hands. The White House and Iraqi officials say it is necessary because the UN mandate for the US presence expires at year's end.
Bush, his approval ratings slumped at near-record lows, pointed to US troop draw-downs scheduled to occur by July and denied that political pressure was playing any role in US force levels in war-torn Iraq.
"They're not coming home based upon defeat, or based upon opinion polls, or based upon focus groups, or based upon politics, they're coming home because we're successful," he said, to thunderous applause.
Bush's speech here to the National Religious Broadcasters was billed as the first in a public relations offensive leading up to an early April progress report from the top US military and diplomatic officials in Iraq.
"The gains in Iraq are tenuous, they're reversible, and they're fragile and there is much more work to be done. This enemy is resilient" he warned ahead of the testimony from General David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
"I will carefully consider their recommendations," on US troop levels, said Bush, who ordered some 30,000 more US forces to Iraq in January 2007 in an escalation widely known as a military "surge."
"I strongly believe the surge is working and so do the Iraqis," he said, pointing to lower rates of sectarian killings and setbacks for members of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Democrats hope to harness deep US public anger at the war -- now on the eve of entering its sixth year -- to recapture the White House and widen their majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.
But Bush mounted an unapologetic defense of the March 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, which turned into an open-ended occupation currently comprising some 162,000 US troops.
"The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency. It is the right decision in this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision," he said to thunderous, sustained applause.
Bush made no mention of his pre-war claims that Saddam possessed vast caches of weapons of mass destruction and close-enough ties to Al-Qaeda that he might pass his arsenal to the terrorists behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"The Iraqi people have begun to see what freedom offers. They've seen what the enemy plans. And they have chosen to stand on the side of freedom. And America stands with them," he said.
Bush's speech to a traditional support base for his Republicans came as fears about the US economy have trumped the war in Iraq as the top issue on US voters minds.
The National Religious Broadcasters official Internet site said the group has 1,400 members and "exists to represent the Christian broadcasters' right to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world."