Bush warns against failure in Iraq

George Bush, the US president, has used his seventh annual State of the Union address to urge Congress to give his Iraq plan "a chance to work".

He warned against "failure" in Iraq and described the war there as part of a larger battle against Sunni and Shia extremists who were "faces of the same totalitarian threat".

Bush accused Iran of spreading violence across the region, saying it was "funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah - a group second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken".

He also addressed domestic issues, proposing cuts to curb climate change and health and education reforms.

'Totalitarian threat'

He said the Iraq war had changed dramatically with the outbreak of sectarian warfare and reprisals.

"This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in," he said.

"Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq - because you understand that the consequences in failure would be grievous and far reaching," Bush said.