WASHINGTON (AFP) -- U.S. President George W. Bush’s announcement that he will withdraw some 21,500 soldiers from Iraq by mid-2008 drew angry fire from Democrats who said his plan amounted to an endless military commitment.

Rejecting calls for a swifter troop pullout, Bush told war-weary Americans in a televised address on Thursday that the troop “surge” strategy that he announced in January was working.
“Because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home,” Bush said. “The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home.”
Insisting the unpopular war can still be won, Bush said whoever succeeds him at the White House will likely inherit the conflict and warned against giving up on a fledgling ally that is “fighting for its survival.”
With most public opinion polls showing the U.S. public two-to-one opposed to his strategy, and his Democratic foes clamoring for a withdrawal, Bush defiantly said he would build “an enduring relationship” with Iraq.
Iraqi leaders “understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency,” said Bush, whose term ends in January 2009.
“These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops,” he said.
The president said that he was following advice from the U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, that he should bring some 5,700 troops home by Christmas and a total of 21,500 troops by mid-2008.
That would leave about 130,000 troops in Iraq, roughly the number in December 2006, one month before he escalated U.S. force levels in a thus-far failed effort to give Iraq’s leaders room to reach key political compromises