...But if Bush does not push for a quicker withdrawal, ''there are going to be a lot of Republican seats in danger," Murtha said. The war, which the White House marketed early on as a liberation Iraqis would welcome, and which would be speedily resolved and paid for with Iraq's oil revenues, is exhausting the patience of the American public -- a majority of whom, polls have suggested, now believe the war was a mistake. The Bush administration has been assuring the American people that US troops would come home as Iraqi forces showed they could take control of their own country.
Asked about it at a news conference this week, however, Bush indicated that US troops may be in Iraq into 2009, saying the decision of when to completely pull out would be a matter for ''future presidents" and for future Iraq governments.
The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, sought to tone down the president's comments yesterday, saying Bush did not mean there would be large numbers of troops in Iraq when his term ends in January 2009.
''The question was: 'Will there be zero?' " troops, McClellan told reporters on Air Force One en route to Wheeling, W.Va., where Bush delivered another in a series of recent speeches meant to shore up support for his approach to battling terrorism. ''So he was referring to that specific question."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/23/mixed_reaction_to_bush_iraq_comments/