Iraqi PM, Bush agree to speed up security training

A boy throws a rock at a burning British consulate vehicle after it was attacked by gunmen with a rocket propelled grenade last week

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister and President Bush agreed to accelerate efforts to build up Iraqi security forces during a teleconference on Saturday that capped a week of public tensions between the two governments.

"There are no strains in the relationship," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base in the United States after the 50-minute teleconference.

"The president is very happy, actually, with the way the prime minister is working."

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his U.S. backers have been struggling to bring stability to Iraq more than three years after a U.S.-led invasion. Sectarian violence kills around 100 people a day and political wrangling is hampering reforms.

"We have agreed to speed up the training of Iraqi security forces in order to move the security responsibility to the Iraqi government," Maliki's office said in a joint statement after the video conference.

Maliki was angered this week when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad seemed to assure impatient American voters that the Iraqi leader was following a U.S.-backed timetable of performance "benchmarks." He hit back with a declaration that no one could impose timetables on Iraq.

On Friday Maliki and Khalilzad papered over the cracks with a joint statement after a meeting, saying the Iraqi government had "timelines" for political developments -- employing the word at the heart of the debate.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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