Bush Keeps Vow to Veto War Funding Bill

"Our main enemy is al-Qaeda and its affiliates," he said, adding that "failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world -- the risks are enormous."

He vetoed the bill shortly after Marine One landed at the White House and then marched before cameras on the state floor to explain why.

Polls suggest the public supports withdrawing troops from Iraq. A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released last week showed that 59 percent of Americans want a withdrawal schedule in the spending bill, although a New York Times-CBS News poll showed that a similar majority wants the war funded even if Bush does not accept timetables.

But such polls have little resonance with Bush these days. "He is convinced that he is doing the right thing," said Fred S. Zeidman, a longtime friend from Texas who spoke to Bush before a recent speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. "He said to me he is not going to allow public opinion to interfere with what he thinks is right for the United States."

Even if an agreement can be reached on the current spending bill, Democrats have served notice that they will try to attach limits on the war to later appropriations. While White House aides said that they hope for a compromise, they also indicated that the president has no intention of accepting significant restrictions on his ability to prosecute the war.

"I am sure there is room for discussion about elements of a supplemental, but I don't think there is room to compromise the fundamental elements of a commander-in-chief function," a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe White House thinking, said in a recent interview. The goal is to give the U.S. military and Iraqi officials a chance to make progress on the ground, and the official said he is "hopeful that there is more than enough time" for Bush's new strategy to succeed.

Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.