WASHINGTON, Jan 29: Under pressure to start bringing US troops home from Iraq after Sunday's election, President George W. Bush said the US mission must keep going to help the new government get its footing.

"As democracy takes hold in Iraq, America's mission there will continue," Mr Bush said on Saturday in his weekly radio address. "Our military forces, diplomats and civilian personnel will help the newly-elected government of Iraq establish security and train Iraqi military police and other forces."

He added: "Terrorist violence will not end with the election."

The president is under growing pressure at home to show signs of progress in Iraq, with the US death toll having surpassed 1,400 and members of Congress increasingly uneasy about the costs in blood and money.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen Edward Kennedy, a critic of Bush's Iraq policy, said on Thursday the United States should start to withdraw military and politically from Iraq and aim to pull out all troops as early as possible next year.

At least 12,000 US troops should leave at once to send a signal about US intentions to "ease the pervasive sense of occupation," Kennedy said.

Mr Bush has resisted setting a timetable for a US troop withdrawal, but in a news conference on Wednesday, he seemed to suggest that by the end of the year the mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to protect themselves could be complete.

"In the face of assassination, brutal violence and calculated intimidation, Iraqis continue to prepare for the elections and to campaign for their candidates," Mr Bush said.

He quoted the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for a recent statement in which the Jordanian militant said "we have declared a fierce war against this evil principle".

"Yet in the fact of this intimidation, the Iraqi people are standing firm. Tomorrow's elections will happen because of their courage and determination," he said.

Mr Bush's original mission in Iraq was to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, but after no weapons turned up, he emphasised the priority of advancing democracy to Iraq.-Reuters