U.S. Pares Other Diplomacy to Focus on Iraq, Rest of Mideast

Rice also scrubbed a trip to Ghana and to Congo, where she would have been the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit in a decade. Instead, she addressed the African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum in Accra via video link. "As you know, now is an especially challenging time in the Middle East and in Iraq, in particular," she said. "And the president has asked me to be in Washington this week."

Bush moved last week to revive the Middle East peace process, and he sent Rice to Lisbon to meet with European, Russian and U.N. officials to rally support for a conference this fall bringing together Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab leaders. Rice also plans to go with Gates to the Middle East soon to try to convince Arab leaders that it is in their interest to support the besieged Iraqi government, if only to keep a bulwark against Iran.

Gates, too, has cleared his immediate schedule of other foreign travel to focus on the Middle East; he already postponed a trip to El Salvador, Colombia, Peru and Chile to help prepare the White House's interim report on Iraq and to lobby Congress to back Bush's strategy for the war.

"The number one priority for the United States is defeating terrorists around the world, and part and parcel of that is succeeding in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that does take up a considerable amount of senior officials' time," said Gordon Johndroe, National Security Council spokesman.

Some travel will be rescheduled, officials noted. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice plans to make a longer Africa trip. "Certainly, she is very committed to Africa and the future of Africa and the U.S.-Africa relationship," he told reporters last week.

The next two months are crucial for Bush as he battles congressional efforts to pull troops from Iraq. The ASEAN summit comes in the days before the critical report by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, scheduled for Sept. 15.

Still, Bush decided he cannot miss the APEC summit, also in early September, hosted by his close ally, Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Besides an overnight trip to Ottawa next month, Bush has no other plans to travel abroad for the rest of the year.

Bush has still found time in Washington to attend to other regions, hosting a White House meeting of Caribbean leaders last month and later attending the Conference of the Americas in Northern Virginia. And his administration has scored notable success with North Korea recently, coaxing Pyongyang into shuttering its nuclear reactor.

Other nations will forgive U.S. inattention for the moment, predicted Richard Holwill, a former deputy assistant secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan. "I think the world is fairly realistic, fairly grown up about these things," he said. "I would be very surprised if there were ill feelings based on that. There's enough reason to have ill feelings based on other things."