WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush vowed on Tuesday to veto a joint congressional move that urges him to immediately halt all combat operations in Iraq and begin withdrawing US troops as early as July.

“They know I’m going to veto a bill containing these provisions, and they know that my veto will be sustained,” Mr Bush told a White House briefing hours after a joint congressional panel spelled out its conditions for approving a $100 billion war fund for the administration. A joint committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate agreed on Monday afternoon to set a timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq, ignoring Mr Bush’s warning earlier in the day that he would not let “Washington politicians” run the war for him.

The Democratic move to tie Mr Bush to a deadline for withdrawal passed a mandatory conference committee and now heads to a final vote on Wednesday in the House and on Thursday in the Senate.

“I’m disappointed that the Democratic leadership has chosen this course. The bill includes some of the worst parts of the measures they had earlier passed with narrow majorities in the House and the Senate,” Mr Bush said.