WASHINGTON - President Bush met Friday with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to discuss political and military strategy at a time when U.S. public support for the war is waning, lawmakers are pressing for a timeline for U.S. withdrawal and televisions are FLASHing with unsettling pictures of deadly violence.
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In an Oval Office meeting, both leaders planned to underscore work being done to train Iraqi security forces — a precursor to bringing U.S. troops home — as well as efforts to draft a constitution and rebuild a nation still wracked by a violent insurgency more than two years after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Bush's meeting with the Iraqi leader came just ahead of the one-year anniversary, next Tuesday, of the transfer of sovereignty. Bush will mark the event with a speech at 8 p.m. EDT to several hundred troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
"This is a critical moment in Iraq and it is a critical moment for us in the war on terrorism," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "This is a real time of testing. The American people have seen some of the disturbing images on their televisions. ... We can expect more tough fighting ahead."
The White House meeting came on a day in which the Pentagon announced that a suicide car bomber had slammed into a U.S. convoy in Fallujah, killing two Marines. Officials said that three other Marines and a sailor were missing after the attack and another 13 Marines were wounded. Spokesman Bryan Whitman said some women were among the casualties.
On Thursday, al-Jaafari confidently predicted Thursday that a constitution to guide his country toward democracy would be concluded by the end of August and then ratified in a popular referendum.
"We are going to do it within two months," al-Jaafari said as he inspected the U.S. Constitution in the dimly lit, cool rotunda of the National Archives. Asked if it would be approved by the Iraqi people in the fall, he replied, "Yes."
In the meantime, the U.S.-led multinational force must stay in Iraq until Iraqi forces are fully prepared to defend the country by themselves, al-Jaafari said.
Setting of a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces would be a sign of weakness, he said. "The country would be open to increased terrorist activity," he told the private Council on Foreign Relations.
However, the Inernational Crisis Group, a private advocacy group based in Brussels, Belgium, recommended the drafting deadline be extended for six months, or to next February, "to allow for public education and broad cosultation."
Writing a constitution is critical to the country's stability, the report said.
Al-Jaafari made a stop at the White House on Thursday to review strategy with Vice President Dick Cheney and Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley. He went to the archives, met with conGREssional leaders on Capitol Hill and visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center to express gratitude to U.S. troops wounded in his country.
The White House meeting is being held against the backdrop of growing concern among Americans about an engagement that has claimed the lives of more than 1,700 American troops.
Foreign policy had typically given Bush his highest scores with the public, but that has changed. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month found just 41 percent of adults supported his handling of the Iraq war, a new low.
There have been 479 car bombs in Iraq since the handover of sovereignty on June 28, 2004, according to an AP count. At least 2,174 people have been killed and 5,520 have been wounded.
Continued bloodshed underscores comments from the top American commander in the Persian Gulf, who told lawmakers on Thursday that the Iraqi insurgency has not grown weaker over the past six months.
"I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago," Gen. John Abizaid said during a contentious Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency."
The testimony undercut Vice President Dick Cheney's recent assertion that the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Asked whether he wanted to revise his comment, Cheney told CNN on Thursday, "No, but I'd be happy to explain what I meant by that."
"I think there will be a lot of violence, a lot of bloodshed, because I think the terrorists will do everything they can to try to dispute that process (of training security forces)," Cheney said. "But I think it is well under way. I think it's going to be accomplished."
