IRAQ - Hakim At White House.

George W. Bush on Dec. 4 told visiting Shi'ite cleric Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim he was not satisfied with the pace of progress in Iraq as he and Bush discussed how the US could accelerate assistance to Baghdad. Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a key partner in the coalition government, said talks focused on arms and training for the Iraqi army and the transfer of military authority from the US commander to the Iraqi government.

Speaking later at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), Hakim criticised US forces for not cracking down hard enough on Sunni insurgents, with emphasis on Neo-Salafi terrorists. Decisive strikes were needed, Hakim said. Otherwise, he warned, Shi'ite spiritual leaders might lose their capacity to contain Shi'ite anger and Iraq would be plunged into civil war and "catastrophic storms that no power in the world could calm or control". USIP is assisting the ISG.

Bush said: "I told His Eminence that I was proud of the courage of the Iraqi people. I told him that we're not satisfied with the pace of progress in Iraq". Asked whether Iraqis were worse off now than under Saddam Hussein - as asserted by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a BBC interview - White House spokesman Tony Snow replied: "You will have to ask the Iraqi people".

Hakim vies with Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical mullah and militia leader, for the mantle of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite politician. Their family feud is generational. Both their militias have been accused of involvement in sectarian violence against the Sunni minority - a charge Hakim denies. Hakim maintains close ties to Iran, where he lived in exile after 1980 and went on to lead the Badr brigade, an Iranian-trained and funded militia that fought on the side of Iran against Iraq in their 1980-88 war. Hakim said Iraq would deal with its neighbours.

The Bush-Hakim meeting was an effort to shore up Baghdad's coalition government and counter Iraqi concerns that the US would bow to growing domestic pressure for an early withdrawal of troops. Hakim had earlier met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Although White House officials portrayed the meetings as part of a normal process of consultation with Iraqi politicians, Hakim's rare visit to Washington fuelled the perception of an administration seeking a new direction in Iraq while tacitly admitting it is not winning the war. Hakim's party is probably the most structured organisation in Iraq. Hakim has dismissed a proposal by Annan for an international conference on Iraq.

Reuel Gerecht, an expert on the Shi'ites at the neo-conservative (neo-con) American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said that by meeting Hakim, Bush was trying to demonstrate he would not succumb to pressure from the ISG for an imminent withdrawal. Gerecht said at their last meeting, in 2004, Hakim had urged Bush to stay the course. But the cleric has since been critical of the US counter-insurgency strategy. Hakim's tacit support for the coalition government is crucial to its survival.

Maliki could not respond to US pressure to take on the Shi'ite militia as long as they remained the guarantors of Shi'ite safety from Sunni attacks in the absence of sufficient US capacity. Scores of deaths in Baghdad on Dec. 2-3 prompted US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, to issue a joint plea to Iraqis not to be "drawn down the road of senseless brutality" in tit-for-tat sectarian killings. Diplomats said they expected Khalilzad to leave his post early next year and that he could be replaced by Ryan Crocker, the current ambassador to Pakistan. Khalilzad has been fiercely criticised by the Shi'ite leadership in Baghdad.

Hakim said after the White House meeting: "We cherish all the sacrifices that took place for the liberation and the freedom of Iraq, sacrifices by the Iraqi people, as well as friendly nations, and on top of that list, sacrifices by the Americans". He asked for the US troops to stay the course in Iraq.