'Nothing less than victory'

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12:48 p.m.

RIGA, Latvia (AP) -- President Bush said today he will not be persuaded by any calls to withdraw American troops before the country is stabilized.

"There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said in a speech setting the stage for high-stakes meetings with the Iraqi prime minister later this week. "We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren."

A bipartisan panel on Iraq is finalizing recommendations on Iraq. The group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, Indiana Democrat, plans to present ideas to Mr. Bush next month.

The panel is expected to debate the feasibility of withdrawal timetables.

The midterm elections added fuel to the argument from Democrats that U.S. troops need to come home. But Mr. Bush has resisted that, even while projecting the need for a different approach.

"We'll continue to be flexible and we'll make the changes necessary to succeed," the president said.

Mr. Bush pushed back against skeptics of his goal of spreading freedom across the Middle East. "I understand these doubts but I do not share them," he said.

In Riga to attend a NATO summit, Mr. Bush also enlisted renewed commitments from the NATO allies that have deployed 32,000 troops to Afghanistan.

He said NATO commanders must have the resources and flexibility to do the job, an apparent reference to the fact that only a handful of countries -- primarily Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands -- are doing much of the heavy lifting in the dangerous southern provinces against a resurgent Taliban.