Bush says summer critical for Iraq strategy

By Steve Holland and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush predicted heavy fighting this summer for U.S. troops in Iraq as the U.S. Congress moved on Thursday toward a tense vote that would give Bush the money he wants for the unpopular war.

With an evening vote possible on a $120 billion (60 billion pounds) bill that primarily funds the war in Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders who had tried but failed to get Bush to accept a troop pullout timetable urged lawmakers to set aside their anger.

"I hope the bill is in a position where we can fund the troops without a lot of animosity at this stage," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "People can make whatever statements they want in regard to the war, and I'm sure that will happen. But I think that we need to get to this as quickly as we can."

Assuming Congress completes the war-funding bill by Friday, Bush is expected to promptly sign into law legislation that for the first time sets a series of "benchmarks" to measure progress in Iraq and ties a small amount of non-military U.S. aid to that progress.

One influential Republican senator, John Warner of Virginia, told reporters that a new U.S. strategy might be needed by July if problems in Iraq do not improve.

"If they continue to worsen as they have been in the past month it seems to me that would be an opportune time to call upon a shift in strategy further in the direction of the Baker- Hamilton report," said Warner, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

He would not specify which recommendations of the report, also known as the Iraq Study Group findings, might be in order. But the December report emphasised a diplomatic, rather than a military, approach to ending the war and raised the possibility of removing combat troops by early 2008.

Bush used a Rose Garden news conference to urge passage of the legislation to support the troops he said face a difficult summer of heavy fighting and more casualties.