by Jim Mannion 22 minutes ago
New US Defense Secretary Robert Gates will brief President George W. Bush Saturday after a visit to Iraq in which he reached a "broad strategic agreement" with the Iraqi government on how to bring security to Baghdad, the White House said.
Gates, who left Iraq Friday, will meet with Bush Saturday morning at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, as Bush mulls whether to order an increase of troops in Iraq, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
Joining them in the meeting will be Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Hadley's deputy Jack Crouch.
Pushed by sectarian violence bordering on civil war and under pressure from the American public to change the US approach in Iraq, Bush is studying alternatives with a view to announcing a new strategy for the Iraq war in early January.
Even as violence mounts in Iraq, he is under strong pressure from the US public to set a timetable to bring home the 129,000 US troops there.
Gates, who was only signed in as defense secretary Monday, replacing Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the US campaign in Iraq, was in Iraq for three days to talk to US generals and Iraqi leaders including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki about how to deal with the violence.
"This is a very difficult situation," he said at the US military headquarters in Iraq at the end of the visit, as the crackle of gunfire and roar of military aircraft reverberated in the distance.
"But I believe, based on what I have heard and seen both from American commanders and the Iraqis, that things are moving in a positive direction."
Gates said the embattled Iraqi government had put forward concrete plans to restore security in the war-shattered country, but gave no details. Nor would he say whether sending more US troops to Iraq was part of the plan.
Insurgent and sectarian violence is at an all-time high in Iraq where deadly bombings, shootings and kidnappings claim an average of 100 lives a day.
The US military announced Friday the deaths of five more US soldiers, bringing the total killed in the country to 2,960, according to an AFP count.
Gates said he had been impressed with the Iraqis' understanding of the problems and their eagerness to take charge.
"We've talked with the Iraqis about the best path forward in terms of improving the security situation here in Baghdad.
"And I think we have a broad strategic agreement between the Iraqi military, and the Iraqi government and our military," he said.
Gates's findings could be crucial to the much-anticipated decision by Bush on how to proceed in Iraq more than three years after the US invasion.
Bush is expected to lay out his new strategy sometime in January, though Perino said no date had been set.
Bush also plans to meet with the National Security Council next Thursday, after he heads to his Texas ranch to finish out the year. Those meetings will also include Vice President Dick Cheney.
Meanwhile on Friday the head of an Al Qaeda-dominated group in Iraq offered to give US troops a month to pull out free of attack.
The White House declined comment on an audiotape posted on the Internet in which Abu Omar al-Baghdadi also said that Washington had attempted to open communications with his group through Saudi intermediaries.
But Baghdadi, leader of a self-proclaimed Islamic emirate in western and north-central Iraq, said he had rebuffed the overture, in the voice recording whose authenticity could not immediately be verified.
"We are offering you the opportunity to withdraw your troops in complete safety and we are expecting your response within two weeks," said the voice on the tape.
"We appeal to President George W. Bush to seize this historic opportunity which should allow your troops to pull out in safety," it said.
Iraqi-US cracks were only too apparent during Gates's visit over attempts by the Maliki administration to woo radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement back into the unity coalition, despite US attempts to sideline him.
US officials have made it clear they favor a realignment in Iraq's unity government which would exclude Sadr and his Shiite militia, which is blamed by US officials for much of the daily violence.
When asked if he had received a commitment from the government to deal with Shiite militias responsible for murder, Gates said he had been told that no group was exempt from the need to crack down on lawbreakers.
But after his Thursday meeting with Gates, Maliki insisted that Sunni extremist groups, not Shiite militias, were the main proble