Washington ? President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took on congressional critics of their Iraq war policy Sunday, saying that U.S. troops would remain until the Baghdad government was ready to take charge and that those calling for a hasty withdrawal were jeopardizing the safety of Americans abroad and at home.

“An immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq will only strengthen the terrorists’ hand in Iraq and in the broader war on terror,” Bush told reporters in Beijing.

Rumsfeld concurred with his boss’ assessment, telling CNN’s “Late Edition” that a withdrawal anytime soon “would be a terrible thing for our country and for the safety of our people.”

The president’s comments came at the end of his weeklong visit to Asia, during which he and his administration were dogged by increasingly combative questions about Iraq and approval ratings for Bush and his war policies continued to sink.

The White House and congressional Republicans late last week leveled blistering attacks on a respected pro-military Democratic lawmaker after he said Thursday that he no longer supported the war policy and called for an immediate phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The comments by Rep. John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, were seen as a particularly damaging blow for the administration, given the decorated Marine Corps veteran’s strong ties to the military over his 31-year congressional career.

During an informal meeting with reporters in Beijing following his series of talks with Chinese leaders, Bush praised Murtha.

“Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man, who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United States congressman,” Bush said. “And I know the decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done in a careful and thoughtful way.”

Bush also went out of his way to call the Iraq question a “worthy debate” in which even patriotic Americans can disagree.

“People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq,” he said. “I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought.”

Murtha, whom the White House compared in a statement Thursday to left-wing filmmaker and Bush critic Michael Moore, continued to press his case Sunday, predicting on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that U.S. forces would leave Iraq before next year’s congressional elections as more members of the House and the Senate bowed to mounting pressure from their constituents.

Murtha also said he was “absolutely convinced we’re making no progress” in training the Iraq troops so that Washington can allow them to take over.

The Baghdad government and its fledgling army are “going to let us do the fighting as long as we’re there,” Murtha said, adding: “They’ll have to work this out themselves.”

Despite their conciliatory rhetoric, Bush and Rumsfeld continued to characterize Murtha’s call for withdrawal as dangerous, misguided and unsupported by the majority of Americans and their elected leaders in Congress.

Like Bush, Rumsfeld backed away from the criticisms of Murtha, specifically countering a freshman GOP congresswoman’s comment on the House floor Friday about how “cowards cut and run, Marines never do.”

“He’s not a coward. I’ll tell you that,” Rumsfeld said of Murtha on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Rumsfeld also said Murtha’s public questioning of the overall U.S. war policy wasn’t a bad thing, or unusual. “We had similar debates during World War II, during Korea, during Vietnam,” Rumsfeld said. But “we also have to understand that our words have effects.”

The defense secretary contended that U.S. assistance has allowed Iraq to make great progress on military and political fronts in advance of the Dec. 15 elections there. He deflected repeated requests for specifics that could support his comments, declining to say how many Iraqi troops have officially met U.S. proficiency standards, the first step toward taking over the security effort.

In September, top U.S. generals said that only 800 Iraqis, or one battalion, met “Level One” U.S. standards, allowing them to go into combat by themselves. An additional 29,000 Iraqis were at “Level Two,” which meant the Pentagon would allow them to lead operations only with U.S. support.