President George W. Bush, under political pressure to change his Iraq policy, on Saturday thanked the families of troops killed in the war for their sacrifice as peace activists prepared to rally at this town near his Texas ranch.
Bush, who is spending a six-day Thanksgiving break at the ranch, paid tribute to more than 2,000 members of the US military who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and assured their families Americans would be eternally grateful.
"This week we also extend our gratitude to our military families, who are making great sacrifices to advance freedom's cause," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "They can know that we will honour that sacrifice by completing the noble mission for which their loved ones gave their lives."
His words gave little comfort to protester Cindy Sheehan who lost her son Casey in Iraq last year and who has become an icon of the peace movement after a 26-day vigil outside Bush's ranch in the summer.
Sheehan, who dedicated a garden memorial to her son in Crawford on Friday, said she and her supporters would return to the small central Texas town every time Bush visited his ranch. They have scheduled a protest rally for Saturday.
"We're not going away," Sheehan said. "The troops will come home. They'll come home a lot sooner than this administration planned on them coming home. ... This war is going to be over."
With political pressure building on Bush to change course in Iraq, US officials have tried to reassure Americans that enough progress was being made in training Iraqi forces to possibly permit some US troops to leave.
The Pentagon plans to shrink the American presence - now at 155,000 - to about 138,000 after the December 15 Iraqi elections and is considering dropping to about 100,000 around mid-2006 if conditions allow, defence officials said this week.
A variety of scenarios, including the possibility of no cut in troop levels, were under review based on political and security conditions in Iraq and progress in developing US-trained Iraqi security forces, they said.
Bush acknowledged the strain on the military and its families, saying: "Many of our servicemen and women have endured long deployments and separations from home. ... Those they leave behind must deal with the burden of raising families while praying for the safe return of their loved ones."
Bush, whose poll numbers have nose-dived to the lowest level of his presidency as critics question the war's origins and progress, has consistently said US forces would stand down when Iraqi forces stand up. He argues that setting a date for withdrawal would simply give insurgents a green light.