Bush Hopes to Seize Opportunity With Iraq Session

Seizing on a rare sequence of promising developments in Iraq, the Bush administration is putting special emphasis on high-level meetings to be held next week to renew the search for ways to move the war-torn country toward stability and allow the United States to eventually reduce its presence there.

President Bush said Friday that his two days of meetings with senior U.S. officials, and then by satellite video link with the new Iraqi prime minister and his Cabinet, would provide an opportunity “to discuss the way forward in Iraq, to analyze the new government, to look carefully at what their blueprint for the future looks like, and to figure out how we can help.”

Bush and other administration officials took pains to emphasize that the meetings were not aimed at establishing a timetable for reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, estimated at 130,000.

However, the White House believes the war may be at a turning point, officials said, because of the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi and the completion of a democratically elected government in Baghdad, led by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

“Zarqawi’s death helps a lot,” the president said, referring to the U.S. military attack that killed Zarqawi, his spiritual advisor and four others Wednesday near Baghdad. “Removing Zarqawi is a major blow to Al Qaeda.”

But, reflecting the administration’s effort to not overstate the effect and open itself to new criticism if insurgent attacks do not ebb, Bush added, “It’s not going to end the war, and it’s certainly not going to end the violence.”

Bush has scheduled a highly unusual daylong conference Monday at Camp David with much of his Cabinet and other national security advisors, including lunch with outside experts.

On Tuesday, Bush and the other officials are scheduled to participate in a videoconference from the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains with their Iraqi counterparts, who will be at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

That discussion is expected to last at least an hour.

Officials emphasized that the meetings were timed to take advantage of the formation of the Iraqi government, and were not tied to Zarqawi’s death.

“The prime minister has put forward a strategy as to how to achieve his objectives, which coincide with our objectives -- a nation that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself. And we want to review all aspects of that strategy,” Bush said during a brief question-and-answer session Friday at Camp David, where he met Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark, a supporter of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Bush administration sees the arrival of a sovereign, democratic government as a particularly important moment allowing the new leaders to establish credibility in the eyes of the Iraqi people and other nations.

White House Counselor Dan Bartlett said the completion of a unity government was a moment of opportunity. “There’s a window here in which it is important for them to show success.”

Bartlett said the meeting was not about drawing down troops, but “about how we can best help the Iraqis secure their country.”

He dismissed a call Thursday by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) for the U.S. to begin withdrawing troops by the end of the year.

American and Iraqi officials will consider questions about financial support from Iraq’s neighbors and steps that can be taken to retire its international debt.

Other top items, as outlined by Maliki: establishing security, furthering national reconciliation and pushing ahead with broad reconstruction, particularly of electricity plants.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley and other senior officials regularly involved in deliberations on Iraq will attend the meetings.

Other Cabinet members also are scheduled to participate, including Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. They will also confer with their Iraqi counterparts Tuesday about specific areas of assistance and expertise the United States can offer to help restore the Iraqi economy, a senior White House official said.