Bush consults US diplomats, experts on Iraq

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) Facing strong pressure to shift course in Iraq, President George W Bush has said in a veiled message to Iran and Syria that Iraq's neighbors need to help Baghdad's struggling government survive.

Bush consulted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top diplomatic officials as part of a high-profile focus this week on how to change strategy in Iraq, but he gave little hint that a big change was in the offing.

Reviewing US policy with an eye toward announcing a shift in course to skeptical Americans next week, Bush will hold a video teleconference today with US military commanders in Baghdad then meet Iraq's vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni. He visits the Pentagon tomorrow.

A week after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gave Bush 79 recommendations for changing course in the unpopular Iraq war, Bush did not appear to be warming to some of the panel's major conclusions as he prepared his own plan.

The White House said the report did not come up in Bush's State Department conversations.

''Not really,'' said White House spokesman Tony Snow. ''Again, this was more a briefing in the sense of taking a look at ongoing efforts and going through a list of possibilities for moving forward.'' The report called for direct talks with Iran and Syria and US combat troops to be out of Iraq by early 2008, two options Bush has declined to embrace.

Bush has not ruled out a regional conference to help Iraq involving Iran and Syria but the White House indicated Iraq would have to set it up. Bush believes Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapon and that Syria is destabilizing Lebanon.

In a message to Iran and Syria, Bush said he and Rice and the others talked about Iraq's neighborhood -- ''the countries that surround Iraq and the responsibilities that they have to help this young Iraqi democracy survive.'' Bush is under pressure to shift strategy due to surging sectarian violence, rising U.S. casualties and American doubts about his handling of the Iraq conflict.

''This is really the calling of our time, that is, to defeat these extremists and radicals, and Iraq is a component part, an important part of laying the foundation for peace,'' Bush said in a refrain from past speeches on Iraq after meeting with Rice and other top officials at the State Department.

Among options Bush is considering is a temporary increase in US troops, as pushed by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, and a new push to try to reconcile differences between Iraq's warring groups.

REUTERS DKS PM0452