U.S. President George W. Bush called on the Democratic-led Congress to work out a "responsible" war spending bill to provide funding for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of this fiscal year.

"I call on Congress to work with my administration and quickly craft a responsible war spending bill," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

The president vetoed an emergency war spending bill early this week, which would provide nearly 100 billion dollars for U.S. troops operating in Iraq and Afghanistan and set a timetable for the troops to withdraw from Iraq.

Bush said he vetoed the bill because "it set a fixed date to begin to pull out of Iraq, imposed unworkable conditions on our military commanders, and included billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war."

The House failed to override the veto on Wednesday, and congressional leaders and Bush met at the White House later that day in an effort to strike a deal on a new bill acceptable to both sides.

Bush said in his radio address that he and congressional leaders of both parties discussed ways to pass "a responsible emergency war spending bill" that would fund the troops as quickly as possible, and that Democratic leaders told him they were committed to funding the troops.

He warned that failure in Iraq could lead to "sectarian killing to multiply on a horrific scale" in the country and embolden al Qaeda to "impose their hateful vision on surrounding countries and... to harm Americans."

In the weekly Democratic radio address, Senator Charles Shumer of New York urged Bush to work with Democrats to find a way "to both fund the troops and change the mission."

U.S. President George W. Bush called on the Democratic-led Congress to work out a "responsible" war spending bill to provide funding for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of this fiscal year.

The Iraq war "has devolved into something the president never mentioned when he asked our country to go to war in Iraq, and something that we never bargained for -- policing a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites," he said.

"It's simply not the job of America or our troops to stand in the middle of a civil war," Shumer said.

The senator said the spending bill that Bush vetoed "fully funded our troops -- it required the president to change the mission in Iraq to what should be our first and foremost goal -- counter-terrorism."

But the veto would not "deter us from finding other ways to achieve our two goals -- fully supporting the troops while dramatically changing our mission," he said.

Over 33,00 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since the war started in March 2003, and the war has become increasingly unpopular with the American public. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released late last month found that 55 percent of those surveyed believed that victory in Iraq was not possible, and 56 percent said they agreed more with Democrats on the issue.

Editor: Donald