WASHINGTON, Sept 22: US President George W. Bush thinks Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton can win the 2008 presidential elections and wants her to continue his Iraq policy when she replaces him at the White House, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

At an off-the-record lunch a week ago, Mr Bush expressed admiration for Senator Clinton’s tenacity in the campaign. “And he left some in the room with the impression that he thinks she will win the election and has been thinking about how to turn over the country to her,” the Post reported.

The topic came up when Mr Bush invited a group of television news anchors and Sunday show hosts to join him in the White House family dining room a few hours before he delivered his nationally televised address on Iraq last week.

Mr Bush made no explicit election predictions, according to some in the room, but clearly thought Senator Clinton would win the Democratic nomination and talked in a way that seemed to suggest he expects her to succeed him – and will continue his Iraq policy if she does.

The broadcasters were not allowed to directly quote Mr Bush, but they were allowed to allude to his thinking and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News later cited the analogy of Dwight D. Eisenhower essentially adopting President Harry S. Truman’s foreign policy despite the Republican general’s 1952 campaign statements.

“He had kind of a striking analogy,” Mr Stephanopoulos told the Post. “He believes that whoever replaces him, like General Eisenhower when he replaced Harry Truman, may criticise the president’s policy during the campaign, but will likely continue much of it in office.”

The Post noted that even though he has repeatedly forsworn playing “prognosticator in chief”, Mr Bush offered the broadcasters some assessment of the race to succeed him.

He praised Senator Clinton as formidable and said she will raise a lot of money. He seemed particularly impressed that she has held up so well under the enormous pressure of the campaign trail, noting that running for national office is extremely hard.