Bush Acknowledges Discontent on Iraq

President Bush waves as he arrives at the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006, in Washington.(AP Photo/Nick Wass) (Nick Wass - AP)

In a news conference in Baghdad, Maliki denied knowing anything about the raid in advance and vowed that such actions "will not be repeated." He also denounced a call by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and the top U.S. military commander in the country for the establishment of a timeline for the Iraqi government to achieve specific political and security goals, including the dismantling of militias.

"I affirm that this government represents the will of the people, and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it," Maliki told the news conference. Maliki said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had not mentioned any specific deadlines to him, and he dismissed talk of timelines as driven by the U.S. midterm elections, the Associated Press reported. "We are not much concerned with it," he said.

Asked about the dispute at his press conference in the White House East Room, Bush said the United States is developing "benchmarks" for solving problems in Iraq but that they cannot be "imposed" on the Maliki government.

"And if his point is that those benchmarks, or the way forward, can't be imposed upon Iraq by an outside force, he's right," Bush said of Maliki. "This is a sovereign government."

Bush also said, "The idea that, you know, we need to coordinate with him makes sense to me. And there's a lot of operations taking place, which means that, sometimes, communications may not be as good as they should be."

He said he continues to believe that Maliki "is the right man to achieve the goal in Iraq" and stressed repeatedly the difficulties of his task. Bush said he talks to Maliki often, and that "I remind him we're with him, so long as he continues to make tough decisions" needed to unite the country.

Alluding to the escalating violence in Iraq despite the presence of more than 140,000 U.S. troops there and the launching of a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation to secure Baghdad, Bush noted that 93 American service members have died in Iraq so far this month, the highest toll since October 2005. Over the same period, more than 300 Iraqi security personnel have been killed, and Iraqi civilians "have suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of the terrorists, insurgents, illegal militias, armed groups and criminals," Bush said.

"The events of the past month have been a serious concern to me and a serious concern to the American people," he said.

He credited Iraq's Shiites with long resisting the "horrific violence" visited on them by groups such as the al-Qaeda affiliate led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June. But the persistent attacks, especially the bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra in February, "eventually resulted in sectarian reprisals," Bush said.

With the Sunni-Shiite violence intensifying, "Americans have no intention of taking sides in a sectarian struggle or standing in the crossfire between rival factions," Bush said. "Our mission is to help the elected government in Iraq defeat common enemies, to bring peace and stability to Iraq and make our nation more secure."

He said, "We are pressing Iraqi's leaders to take bold measures to save their country. We're making it clear that America's patience is not unlimited. Yet we also understand the difficult challenges Iraq's leaders face. And we will not put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it can bear."

In response to a question, he said later, "Look, we'll push him [Maliki], but we're not going to push him to the point where he can't achieve the objective. And we'll continue to work with him."