The U.S. House of Representatives has defied President George W. Bush's veto threat and approved a war-funding bill that sets a timeline for the start of a withdrawal from Iraq. The bill passed on April 25 by the House provides an additional $124 billion in war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan, through September 30, as President George W. Bush had requested.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has criticized the Iraqi government for refusing to disclose recent casualty figures in the war-torn country. In a quarterly report released today, UNAMI said the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had complained in January that the UN mission's casualty reports were exaggerated. Al-Maliki has barred other Iraqi officials from releasing further data.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Iran to take part in a meeting next month in Egypt on how to end the Iraq war. In an interview published in today's "Financial Times," Rice said it would be a "missed opportunity" if Tehran failed to attend.

U.S. President George W. Bush has rebuffed a top Democrat's charge that the Iraq war is lost and asserted that progress is being made despite recent Baghdad carnage. Bush rejected comments made on April 19 by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nevada, Democrat), who said the Iraq war is "lost" and a troop buildup in Baghdad was "not accomplishing anything."

The White House and Congress are starting to look beyond the current impasse over legislation to fund the Iraq war. VOA's Paula Wolfson reports both sides are starting to talk about ways to resolve the controversy.

President Bush took the battle over funding for the Iraq war to a U.S. military base on Wednesday. VOA's Paula Wolfson reports from the White House, the president spent the day with troops at Fort Irwin, California.

A new poll shows that declining American public support for the war in Iraq is leading to an increasingly negative public opinion of resorting to military force to settle global conflicts. The findings come in the fourth survey conducted jointly by the non-profit organization Public Agenda and Foreign Affairs, one of America's most influential publications on foreign policy.

President Bush says U.S. troops will suffer if Congress fails to pass a funding bill without conditions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In remarks in the White House Rose Garden Tuesday, Mr. Bush said it has been 57 days since he asked Congress to pass an emergency funding bill for the military.

The U.S. Senate adopted a bill that calls on President George W. Bush to withdraw all combat U.S. troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008. Bush said he would veto the measure, and that Congress should not tie the hands of the military by trying to make decisions for those involved in the fighting.

Majority Democrats and President Bush still appear headed on a collision course over legislation to fund the war in Iraq. From Capitol Hill, VOA's Dan Robinson reports Democratic leaders in the House and Senate believe they have gained momentum from a Senate vote Tuesday to retain language on a troop withdrawal by next year, even though the president again accused Democrats of harming U.S. troops.

President Bush has renewed his threat to veto a bill before Congress that would fund the Iraq war, but would also set a deadline for a U.S. troop withdrawal. VOA's Paula Wolfson reports it is the latest escalation in tensions between the White House and the Democratic Party majority on Capitol Hill.

Congressional Democrats are showing no signs of backing down on their rebuke of the Iraq war, insisting President George W. Bush will have to accept some sort of legislative timetable in exchange for the billions of dollars needed to fund the war.