WASHINGTON – President Bush paid a bedside visit to wounded soldiers yesterday, then predicted victory for their comrades in Iraq in their battle against terrorists “who want to stop democracy” there.

“Godspeed to them,” the commander in chief said, speaking of thousands of soldiers and Marines waging a potentially pivotal offensive against foreign and Iraqi rebels dug in at Fallujah, 40 miles from Baghdad.

The Americans and soldiers of Iraq’s interim government “are doing the hard work necessary for a free Iraq to emerge,” Mr. Bush declared after spending two hours with soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even as he portrayed the Fallujah invasion as a major part of the American effort to keep elections on schedule for January, however, Sunni clerics in Iraq demanded a boycott of the voting in response to the military campaign that began Monday.

“Coalition forces are now moving in to Fallujah to bring to justice those who are willing to kill the innocent and those who are trying to terrorize the Iraqi people and our coalition; those who want to stop democracy,” Mr. Bush said. “And they’re not going to succeed.”

The president and his wife, Laura, went from room to room in two wards of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit privately 42 soldiers being treated for injuries ranging from broken bones and minor injuries to missing legs and severe skull injuries.

Yesterday marked Mr. Bush’s sixth visit to wounded troops at the army hospital since the war on terror began in late 2001.