By RICHARD GARDNER

Last updated at 08:09 23 August 2007

George Bush made it clear last night he is determined to stop Iraq becoming his Vietnam.

In bringing up the spectre of a bloody war which still haunts America 30 years on, the president broke a taboo in order to reinforce his warning that millions of innocents could suffer if the U.S. pulls out of Iraq too soon.

Insisting that his troop 'surge' is finally paying dividends in Iraq, Mr Bush said the withdrawal from South East Asia in 1975 should have taught America the need for patience.

The White House has previously gone to great lengths to avoid any comparisons with America's humiliation in Vietnam.

But speaking to war veterans in Missouri yesterday, Mr Bush gambled on drawing parallels with the conflict's violent aftermath in a bid to win back public support to stay the course in Iraq.

"Many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people," said Mr Bush.

"The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left."

Referring to the reprisals against U.S. allies in Vietnam, the displacement of Vietnamese refugees and the massacres in neighbouring Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, he added: "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people", "re-education camps" and "killing fields"."

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Mr Bush said that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists, citing Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's claim that the U.S. public would rise up against the Iraq conflict in the same way.

"Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently," said the president.

"I recognise that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time."

In Britain, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, whose party opposed the Iraq War, criticised Mr Bush's speech, saying: "Things must be getting pretty desperate when an American president feels it necessary to rely on the bruising and never-toberepeated experience in Vietnam."

President Bush also claimed that his controversial decision to push more troops into the Iraqi war zones is bearing fruit.

He said U.S. forces "are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against Al Qaeda, clearing the terrorists out of population centres and giving families in liberated Iraqi cities their first look at decent and normal life.

"Our troops are seeing this progress on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?

"My answer is clear.

"We will support our troops, we will support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed."

The president's speech came as Iraqi premier Nouri al-Maliki hit back at U.S. criticism of his government.

On Tuesday, Mr Bush had appeared to distance himself from Iraq's government for the first time, saying that there was 'a certain level of frustration with the leadership' of Mr Maliki.

But Mr Maliki blamed many of the negative comments on politicians seeking to gain an advantage in the U.S. presidential primaries.

Saying 'no one has the right to place timetables' on the Iraqi government, he warned that Iraq could 'find friends elsewhere'.

• The number of black recruits joining the U.S. Army has nearly halved since the start of war in Iraq.

Yesterday, heightened levels of anti-war feeling in America's black community were blamed for the dramatic drop-off, as another 14 U.S. soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in northern Iraq.

The proportion of black recruits dropped from 23 per cent in 2001 to just 13 per cent last year.

The number of female U.S. Army recruits also fell from 22 per cent in 2000 to 17 per cent this year.