US President George W. Bush admitted on Thursday that his bellicose "bring 'em on" taunt to Iraqi insurgents was a big mistake, as he and British Prime Minister Tony Blair carefully avoided setting a timetable for removing troops from Iraq.

U.S. President George W. Bush (L) welcomes British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the White House in Washington May 25, 2006. Bush and Blair were unlikely to set a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq when they meet at the White House on Thursday to discuss the next steps in bringing order to the country, the White House said. [Reuters]

Meeting at a time when a new Iraqi unity government offers the promise of a way out of an unpopular war that has damaged their standings at home, Bush and Blair were remarkably reflective on some of the grievous mistakes that critics say has intensified anti-American sentiment in the Middle East.

Back in July 2003, the tough-talking Texan responded to a question about the emerging Iraqi insurgency by saying "bring 'em on."

At a joint news conference with Blair, after three years of war that has killed more than 2,400 Americans and thousands of Iraqis, Bush said that remark was "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong message to people."

"I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner, you know. "Wanted, dead or alive"; that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted," he said.

He also cited the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal as "the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq ... We've been paying for that for a long period of time," he said.

Blair said the effort to rid Iraq's army of members of Saddam Hussein's Baathists -- a process called "de-Baathification -- could have been done better.

"I think it's easy to go back over mistakes that we may have made. But the biggest reason why Iraq has been difficult is the determination by our opponents to defeat us. And I don't think we should be surprised at that," Blair said.