Ja'fari In US.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari met with President Bush at the White House on June 24. At a joint press conference, he and Bush reaffirmed their confidence in their ability to win the war and stick to a timetable for elections. Answering a question about opinion polls showing falling US support for the war, Bush said: "This is a time of testing. This is a critical time. Following polls is like a dog chasing its tail. My job is to lay out an agenda".

Ja'fari said: "We are making steady and substantial progress". But he and Bush said setting a timetable for withdrawal would only do the enemy a favour. Bush said: "There's not going to be any timetable... We are there to complete a mission". Bush said US troops would "eventually" return home, once the Iraqi government was secure. The enemy would not drive them out, Bush said. Both did commit themselves to keeping to the agreed political timetable, which involves drafting a new constitution by Aug. 15 and holding a referendum on the document in October, to be followed by parliamentary elections by December. The Financial Times on June 25 quoted a senior US official as saying, however, that both were considering delaying the process by six months. Bush said they had discussed the need for the Shiite-led government to bring minority Sunni Arabs into the political process. Iraqi officials with Ja'fari said Baghdad was more worried about the Kurdish minority in the north and their aspirations for greater autonomy or independence.

Pollsters say steadily declining US support for the war - one recent poll showed 56% of Americans did not think it was worth going to war - results from Americans closely following mounting death toll among US troops, more than 1,740 since the war began in March 2003.