Bush says Iraqis must make tough choices

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 (Reuters) US President George W Bush has turned up the pressure on Iraqi leaders to set aside their differences and make tough decisions on their country's future.

Bush told Iraqi President Jalal Talibani in a meeting that the United States stands with Iraqis ''so long as the government continues to make the tough choices necessary for peace to prevail.'' He used similar language earlier in a speech to the UN General Assembly, saying the United States will not yield ''the future of your country to terrorists and extremists.'' ''In return, your leaders must rise to the challenges your country is facing, and make difficult choices to bring security and prosperity,'' he said.

The Bush government wants Iraqis to make critical decisions on how to share Iraq's oil wealth, crack down on militias responsible for some of the sectarian violence the country is experiencing, reform the police force and make progress on power-sharing and political reconciliation.

Bush is faced with election-year pressure to show progress in Iraq, and his comments were a noticeable shift from the unconditional pledges of support for Iraq he has delivered for months.

Megan O'Sullivan, the National Security Council senior director for Iraq and the West Asia, said Bush's remarks reflected ''the reality that the Iraqis have a lot of difficult decisions to do, these are hard decisions to make, and that we both encourage and urge them to take on these decisions.'' She said Talibani told Bush there had been progress on reconciliation, the process of bringing together Sunnis and Shi'ites.

''We're in the process of building a project but we're not yet finished and need your support and your patience,''' O'Sullivan quoted Talabani as saying.

O'Sullivan said Bush told Talabani that he has a lot of confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and felt he had gotten stronger.

Maliki's security plan for Baghdad failed miserably in June and prompted the United States to bring in thousands of US troops to try to stop the killings.

Democrats hoping to overturn Bush's Republicans from control of the US Congress in November kept up their criticism of Bush on Iraq.

''This administration has no strategy for success in Iraq,'' said Delaware Democratic Sen Joe Biden. ''It's only strategy is to prevent defeat and hand the problem off to the next administration.'' REUTERS DKS BST0537