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(CNSNews.com) -- Announcing a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would send the wrong message to the troops, to Iraq, and to terrorists, President Bush said Tuesday.

Responding to calls by a number of lawmakers and other critics, Bush assured Americans in a televised speech delivered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that the troops would not remain one day longer than needed.

But setting a deadline for their withdrawal would be "a serious mistake," he said. "Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done," the president said.

"It would send the wrong message to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out."

President Bush described Iraq as the "latest battlefield" in the global war on terror - a war that reached U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001.

"Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania," Bush said. "There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."

Bush said the mission in Iraq is clear: "We're hunting down the terrorists. We're helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We're advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability, and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren."

He said although progress has been made, there's a lot more work to do, and he said the "strategy going forward" is both military and political:

"The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists, and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," Bush said.

Reaction mixed

Reaction to the president's speech fell predictably along party lines. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said, "The president is right - we cannot allow the terrorists to shake our resolve."

And like the president, he tied the war in Iraq to the attacks on U.S. soil: "If there is any doubt why we are in Iraq, one must only remember the events of September 11th, when the terrorists attacked our nation. We took the war to the terrorists, rather than waiting for them to attack again," Hastert said.

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