The US House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a war spending bill that would require US troops to start leaving Iraq from October.

President George W Bush has warned that he will veto any such bill. If passed, it could reach his desk next week.

Republicans and Democrats have been in deadlock on the legislation for weeks.

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and other defense officials are to hold private briefings with lawmakers ahead of the House vote.

Gen Petraeus is expected to use the bi-partisan meetings to try to win support for Mr Bush's plan to increase troop numbers in Iraq to improve stability.

He has said it will be late summer before he knows whether the troop "surge" is working. Not all the extra US forces are yet in place in Iraq.

The Senate is expected to vote on the legislation on Thursday.

'Attack dog'

A war of words has gained force ahead of the votes, with Republicans and the Democrats, who control Congress, trading blows.

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, criticized Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi following media reports she would not be present at the briefing with Gen Petraeus.

On Tuesday, Vice-President Dick Cheney accused Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of "defeatism" over the war.

"It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage," he said.

Senator Reid dismissed Mr Cheney's comments, saying: "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with the administration's chief attack dog."

He defended the war spending bill as "a good piece of legislation" and said a change of direction was needed in Iraq.

"I would hope the president would stop being so brusque and waving it off," he said. "This is a bill that is good for the troops. It's good for the country."

But Mr Bush shows no signs of budging from his determination to veto any bill tying war spending to a timetable for troop withdrawal.

The legislation was an attempt to "handcuff our generals, add billions of dollars of unrelated spending and begin to pull out of Iraq by an arbitrary date", he said on Tuesday.

"To accept the bill proposed by the Democratic leadership would be to accept a policy that directly contradicts the judgment of our military commanders."

The $124bn (£62bn) spending bill ties money for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to an October deadline to start pulling out US combat troops from Iraq and a target of April 2008 for complete withdrawal.

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Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid