US Vice President Dick Cheney warned on Tuesday against withdrawing from Iraq and rejected calls for a speedy drawdown of troops.

"This would be unwise in the extreme," Cheney told the troops, some just back from Iraq in a cavernous aviation hangar on this base in northern New York.

"On this, both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree: The only way the terrorists could win is if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission," Cheney argued.

It was the latest installment in the administration's effort to shore up slumping support for the war with a series of speeches ahead of Dec. 15 elections to pick a permanent Iraqi government.

The latest round of speeches on Iraq began last Wednesday with Bush's address to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in which he detailed progress but gave no departure date, and the White House release of a 35-page document titled "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."

"As the Iraqi forces grow more capable, they are increasingly taking the lead in the fight against the terroists," Bush said. "Our goal is to train enough Iraqi forces so they can carry the fight against the terrorists."

He was echoed by Rumsfeld, who told a Pentagon press conference in Washington DC that "quitting the war" will allow insurgents to prevail and put the United States "at still greater risk."

"Quitting is not an exit strategy. It would be a formula for putting American people at still greater risk and an invitation for more terrorist violence," he said. 

There are currently some 159,000 US troops stationed in Iraq, and some 2,100 have been killed by anti-US military groups there since President Bush launched the March 2003 invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.

A recent poll found 62 percent of Americans disapproved of Bush's Iraq policy while his overall job approval rating is at 37 percent, the lowest in his presidency.

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2005)