Bush vows to stay course in Iraq

AMMAN, Jordan -- A day before his meeting here with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki , President Bush said yesterday that despite the lively debate in Congress and among the US American public about the way forward in Iraq, he will not withdraw US troops until Iraq is stable enough to protect itself.

In a speech at the NATO summit in Latvia, Bush said: "We will continue to be flexible, and we'll make the changes necessary to succeed. But there's one thing I'm not going to do. I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, told reporters before the speech that, at a time when the media is filled with myriad proposed changes in strategy, Bush felt it was important to signal to Maliki that "while he is listening to all of these voices for ideas . . . in the end of the day . . . it is the president who will be crafting the way forward on Iraq."

At tomorrow's meeting, Bush is expected to urge Maliki to wrap up a series of political negotiations with the Sunni Muslim minority, including agreements on who controls the country's oil fields and how oil revenues are distributed, as well as a deal on amnesty for former Ba'athists. US officials said they hope that reaching political settlements on those issues could produce reconciliation that would help to quell the increasing violence.

But with the death toll climbing, and with record numbers of Iraqis fleeing the country -- 2,000 to 3,000 every day, according to the United Nations -- there is a sense that time is running out.

Bush and Maliki are under pressure to come up with successful initiatives to stem the ethnic carnage, strengthen a flagging Iraqi government, and chart a way forward for US forces in Iraq.

Analysts said yesterday that Washington must act quickly to help bring the various Iraqi factions to the table to push Iraq out of civil war.

Without a major policy initiative by the United States, the country's sects will be left to fight to the finish, leaving the country vulnerable to military intervention from neighboring countries, said Joost Hiltermann , the Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group, a centrist think tank.

"The Iraqi parties by themselves are not capable of doing it," he said. "We've seen no new American initiative to bring the Iraqi parties around the table.That is what is required."

But Bush told reporters Monday that he was looking to Maliki for a solution.

"My questions to him will be: What do we need to do to succeed?" Bush said of his planned meeting with Maliki. "I will ask him: What is required and what is your strategy to be a country which can govern itself and sustain itself?"

Democratic leaders, who won control of both houses in Congress, have urged Bush to tell the Iraqi government that the US commitment is not open-ended, and to set a withdrawal date as a way to force Maliki to make the political compromises necessary to build a government that can survive on its own.

Bush did just the opposite yesterday, sending a message of reassurance and support after widespread speculation that a bipartisan study group on Iraq could call for a significant shift in US policy. Bush called the war a part of "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century" and blamed the violence in Iraq on Al Qaeda.

Analysts described Maliki as an increasingly weak and compromised Iraqi leader who came to power, in part, because he was not considered a threat to the powerful Shi'ite cleric and militia leader, Moqtada al Sadr.

Sadr's political support allowed Maliki to be elected prime minister, but Sadr has threatened to pull his support from Maliki's government if Maliki meets Bush.

Maliki has been unable to rein in the three Shi'ite militias controlled by members of his Shi'ite coalition. The militias are considered responsible for running death squads that have executed hundreds of Sunnis.

Maliki's outreach to tribal leaders and political factions has failed to build strong enough alliances with Sunnis linked to the insurgency to decrease Sunni-led attacks on the government.

The survival of Maliki's government depends on the continued deployment of roughly 145,000 US troops in Iraq. But the American public is growing increasingly impatient.

King Abdullah of Jordan, whom Bush and Maliki will meet in Jordan, issued a call this week to the United States and the Middle East that war could overwhelm Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority

Abdullah has also pushed the White House to devote more attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he met Tuesday with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as part of a quiet effort to organize a summit between Abbas, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Bush.

Bush has tried to shore up Maliki's government. He paid a surprise visit to Baghdad in June, and hosted Maliki at the White House in July, when they announced a plan to concentrate US troops in Baghdad to quell violence there.

That approach brought some success initially, but a huge spike in violence followed in October and November. Last week, more than 200 were killed in coordinated attacks against Shi'ites in Sadr City, the worst attack since the 2003 US-led invasion, prompting revenge killings of Sunnis.

Stockman reported from Washington, and Cambanis from Amman, Jordan.