US Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged supporters to petition President George W. Bush to drop his threat to veto bills approved in the US Congress that set a date to pull back US forces from Iraq. Clinton, a former US first lady and senator from New York, is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the 2008 presidential election.
"The American people have had enough of the president's failed strategy in Iraq," read the message on Clinton's presidential campaign website. "Join Hillary in telling him to listen to the will of the people and to Congress, withdraw his veto threat, and begin phased deployment of the troops out of Iraq."
In a Tuesday news conference, Bush reiterated his threat to veto any bill that had a withdrawal date for US forces in Iraq. He warned that Congress's failure to unconditionally approve his request for war funds in the coming weeks will only hurt US troops.
"The price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones," Bush said. In a statement, Democratic Party chief Howard Dean said that Bush "should work with Democrats in Congress to give the American people the new direction in Iraq they demanded last November." Democrats took control of both chambers of the US Congress in November, a vote widely seen as a repudiation of Bush's Iraq policy.