March 20, 2007	Tuesday	Safar 30, 1428

WASHINGTON, March 19: On the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, President George Bush urged his country’s lawmakers to give him “the funds and the flexibility” needed to accomplish the mission.

It was four years ago today that President Bush announced the start of the war in Iraq, sending US warplanes to bomb buildings believed to house Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

American troops still remain in Iraq with no apparent end to a conflict which has already caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and more than 3,000 US soldiers.

The war has become increasingly unpopular across the world and in the United States where opposition Democrats are urging Mr Bush to withdraw his troops by the end of 2008.

But Mr Bush is still adamant to win the war and in a televised statement from the White House Roosevelt Room on Monday, he pleaded for more patience, saying success is possible but "will take months, not days or weeks."

He told the lawmakers who want him to withdraw troops to give up their demand and instead pass an emergency war spending bill to fund his war efforts.

“They have a responsibility to ensure that this bill provides the funds and the flexibility that our troops need to accomplish their mission. ... And they have a responsibility to get this bill to my desk without strings and without delay,” he said.

Opposition Democrats, however, have attached a condition to this bill that would effectively require the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008.

The impending House of Representative vote concerns a $124 billion spending bill, $95.5 billion of which is targeted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The White House has been pushing aggressively against this legislation, and Mr Bush did so again on Monday.

“It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home,” he said. “That may be satisfying in the short run. But I believe the consequences for America's security would be devastating.” But as he spoke, protesters marched across America to call for an end to the funding of the Iraq war and for the immediate return of US troops.

Demonstrators converged in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, San Diego and Connecticut, urging Mr Bush to heed what they said was the will of the people.

Even the Christian right, which still supports Mr Bush’s domestic policies, is now opposing the war.

“Millions of people around the world sadly believe this is a Christian war,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the groups which brought more than 30,000 people to protest outside the Pentagon this weekend. “We have to clear up the confusion. This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong — and was from the beginning.”

On the fourth anniversary of the war, military experts joined others in telling the Bush administration that his Iraq policy has failed.

“The notion of a quick victory followed by a quick withdrawal did not come to fruition,” says Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a military analyst with MSNBC Television. “The two main reasons were the insistence by some in the US government that we try to create a representative government in Iraq, while at the same time disbanding the Iraq army, the primary security organisation in the country. Those two factors forced the United States to begin an occupation to secure the country — an occupation its forces were unprepared to conduct.”

Such comments, however, had little impact on Mr Bush who said his plan to send 21,500 additional US troops to secure Iraq "will need more time to take effect," especially since fewer than half of the troop reinforcements have yet arrived in the capital. Mr Bush added: “There will be good days and bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds.”

Mr Bush said he held a closed-circuit television conference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from Baghdad earlier on Monday and also consulted his national security team who told him that they already see positive signs.

"There's a lot more work to be done and Iraq's leaders must continue to work to meet the benchmarks they have set forward," he said. "As Iraqis work to meet their commitments, we have important commitments of our own."