Bush under pressure from Republicans on Iraq

By Steve Holland and Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, already under fire from Democrats over Iraq, is facing mounting pressure from fellow Republicans to show substantial progress in the war by September or risk their desertion.

Republicans looking ahead to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, after losing control of the U.S. Congress in November, are publicly sharing doubts about the president's war strategy.

"The American people are war-fatigued. The American people want to know that there's a way out. The American people want to know that we're having success," Illinois Republican Rep. Ray LaHood told CNN on Thursday.

LaHood was among 11 moderate Republicans who met privately with Bush at the White House on Tuesday. Most, if not all, could face stiff Democratic challenges to their re-election.

They told Bush that by September the troop buildup he ordered for Iraq three months ago must show progress.

Particularly frustrating to members of the U.S. Congress are plans by the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month summer vacation, a subject raised by Vice President Dick Cheney on his visit to Baghdad on Wednesday.

"Members really told the president, in I think the most unvarnished way that they possibly could, that things have got to change, that we're going to hang with him until September, but we need an honest assessment in September and people's patience is running very, very, very thin," LaHood said.

Bush is already facing opposition to his Iraq plan -- Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing bills that would provide partial war funding but also begin withdrawing troops.