President George W. Bush and other senior administration officials on Sunday vowed to press on with their controversial plans to send more troops to Iraq, despite bipartisan opposition in Congress including threats to cut off funding for the new deployment.

Speaking in a television interview on Sunday night on CBS’s 60 Minutes , Mr Bush struck a defiant note. “They [Congress] could try to stop me from doing it. But – I made my decision, and we’re going forward,” he said, dismissing growing congressional opposition to his plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.