The Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq will remain “full steam ahead” regardless of the outcome of US mid-term elections that take place on Tuesday, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, said in an interview with ABC news on Sunday.

Opinion polls predict that the Democratic party, which is arguing for a phased redeployment of US troops out of Iraq over the next 12 to 18 months, are on course to win control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994 and possibly the Senate, for the first time since 2002.