U.S. House votes to bring most troops home by April 1

BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The U.S. House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to bring most troops home from Iraq by April 1, 2008, but Republican allies in the House of President Bush said the new measure will not pass.

Bush vetoed a war-spending bill with a similar withdrawal date in May and has threatened to do the same to any new attempt to set a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday's mixed report on the progress of the war shows it's time for American troops to come home.

"President Bush continues to urge patience, but what is needed -- and what the American people are demanding -- is a new direction," she said.

The president said it is not up to Congress job to make decisions regarding the war.

But before the House vote, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "We're the people who decide when to go to war, whether the war should be funded.

"Now, when [the Bush administration] keeps making mistakes as they have made, we have to intercede. The public spoke in the last election and said clearly we want the troops redeployed."

Earlier Thursday, Bush said a report on U.S.-set benchmarks for Iraq shows "satisfactory progress" in eight areas. He admitted that there is "more work to be done."

"This is an ugly war. It's a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective," Bush said. "It doesn't surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people."