BUSAN, South Korea (AP) – For President Bush, there’s no respite from Iraq. Even traveling in Asia, he’s had to deal with an Iraq rebuff from a friend, South Korea, and with turmoil over his policies back home.

Criticism of the war in Congress and calls for a pullout of American troops have drawn a no-holds-barred verbal counterattack from the traveling White House.

“In Washington, there are some who say that the sacrifice is too great and they urge us to set a date for withdrawal before we have completed our mission,” Bush said Saturday in remarks prepared for a speech at Osan Air Base, headquarters for the 7th Air Force, the primary U.S. Air Force unit in Korea.

“We will fight the terrorists in Iraq and we will stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory our brave troops have fought and bled for.”

The harsh words from home were compounded Friday by unwelcome news both in Iraq and here.

In Iraq, suicide bombers killed scores of worshippers at two Shiite mosques near the Iranian border, while a pair of car bombs targeting a Baghdad hotel housing Western journalists killed more Iraqis.

South Korea, meanwhile, announced it would withdraw about 1,000 of its 3,200 troops in Iraq next year.

The move caught the White House by surprise. “They have not informed the United States government of that,” said National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones. He said President Roh Moo-hyun had not broached the subject with Bush when the two met just a day earlier.

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Roh had told Bush that South Korea remained committed to Iraq and would continue to provide troops. Hadley said the withdrawal announcement from the defense ministry was not the last word and the issue still had to be settled by the National Assembly next week.

The White House, with its Iraq policy under siege, has mounted a counteroffensive that resembles a bare-knuckles political campaign. It features fast responses and sharp retorts – from Bush traveling in Asia and from Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the United States – to accusations that the administration manipulated intelligence and deceived the nation in a rush to war.

When longtime defense hawk Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq over six months, the White House fired off a statement comparing the combat-decorated Vietnam veteran to war critic-movie producer Michael Moore and suggesting that Murtha was counseling surrender in the war on terror.

Murtha put himself “at the extreme side” of the Democratic Party, to the left of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Friday.

The increasing acrimony comes with the death count of U.S. troops in Iraq climbing above 2,080 and the president’s approval ratings at the lowest of his presidency. Americans’ perceptions of Bush’s honesty and faith in his ability to fight terrorism also have slipped to their lowest point in the AP-Ipsos poll.

The Iraq war has dogged him. He continues to be questioned about it on Asia stops. And war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, says she will resume her vigil next week outside Bush’s Texas ranch, where the president is spending the Thanksgiving holiday.

On Friday, Bush attended the initial meetings of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, where Pacific Rim leaders were addressing stalled global trade talks and the potential for an avian flu pandemic.

Outside at barricades near the meeting, riot police sprayed high-powered water hoses to hold back about 4,000 demonstrators chanting “No Bush! No APEC.” Some demonstrators threw rocks and bamboo sticks at the police.

Bush was to attend the final APEC meetings Saturday and meet the president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, an ally in the war on terror. Later, he was to fly to China after pausing in South Korea to address U.S. troops at Osan Air Base. He returns to Washington on Monday after a stop in Mongolia.

Bartlett said the White House decided to launch its tough counterattack on Iraq because the criticism “reached a critical mass” with a level of ferocity in recent days that could not be ignored. He promised the administration’s approach would be sustained until Democrats cool their rhetoric.

“It’s an old political axiom in Washington that a charge leveled – whether it be true or false – if left unanswered, can have currency,” said Bartlett.

As part of its campaign, the White House put out a set of talking points it entitled “Setting the Record Straight.”

Among other issues, it challenged a claim by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that the Senate’s vote on Iraq to require more reports to Congress was a vote of “no confidence.”

The Senate voted 79 to 19 on Tuesday to require the administration to report to Congress every three months on progress in Iraq and to urge the president to turn over to Iraqis more control of their country to speed the eventual withdrawal of American troops.

“The fact is that the Senate amendment reiterates the president’s strategy in Iraq,” said the talking points.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee planned to begin broadcasting television ads this weekend seeking to portray Reid and other top Democrats as hypocrites for criticizing administration Iraq policies after earlier warning that Saddam Hussein posed a grave threat to the U.S.

Cheney is to make another speech Monday, a followup to his assertion this week that Democrats’ criticism was “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.”

Over the past week, Bush twice has used audiences of U.S. military troops as the background for attacks against Democratic critics, accusing them of making false charges and being “deeply irresponsible.” The appearances, in Pennsylvania and Alaska, raised eyebrows, since military bases traditionally are not used for partisan speeches.

AP-ES-11-18-05 2158EST

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