US steps up Iraq, Mideast diplomacy with high-level visits

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said Thursday he was sending his diplomatic and defense chiefs to the Middle East next month to shore up support for Iraq's besieged government.

Bush told a White House news conference that the tour by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates would also reaffirm US support for democratic reform in the strife-torn region.

His announcement came as a new administration report drew a bleak picture of progress by the Baghdad government and accused Iran and Syria of playing a nefarious role in the bloody carnage gripping Iraq.

"We're also using the tools of diplomacy to strengthen regional and international support for Iraq's democratic government, so I'm sending Secretary Gates and Secretary Rice to the region in early August," Bush said.

Rice had been due to head to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week, but that has now been postponed to the end of July to tie in with the early-August trip with Gates, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

It will be Rice's first visit to the region since the abrupt takeover of Gaza by Hamas, which the United States, along with Israel and the European Union, considers a terrorist outfit.

Officials said the itinerary for Rice and Gates was still being worked out, but the secretary of state indicated that the trip was likely to include Gulf states, Jordan and Egypt.

Rice told Fox News that Iraq's neighbors "do need to help the outcome in Iraq."

"They are as dependent for their security in the long-term on a stable Iraq as we are. Some might even say even more, because it's their neighborhood that will be destabilized if Iraq is in chaos," she said.

"We want to talk about what the way forward looks like in Iraq, both in terms of what the United States needs to do, but also in terms of what they need to do to support the development of a stable and democratic Iraq."

Bush, having helped to install former British prime minister Tony Blair as the new envoy for the "quartet" of Middle East diplomatic powerbrokers, said the United States would remain diplomatically engaged in the region.

"I firmly believe that you'll see the democracy movement continue to advance throughout the Middle East if the United States doesn't become isolationist," he said.

Rice and Gates will "remind our friends and allies that one, we view them as strategic partners, and secondly that we want them to work toward freer societies and to help this Iraqi government survive," Bush added.

"It's in their interests that Iraq become a stable partner. And I believe we can achieve that objective."

At a conference on Iraq held in Egypt in May, regional powers including Iran and Syria stressed their intent to halt extremist activities and prevent their territory from being a base for terror operations in Iraq.

But both the neighboring countries continue to foster bloodshed in Iraq, according to an interim US administration report published Thursday on Bush's recent "surge" of 30,000 more troops into Iraq.

"As noted, Iran funds extremist groups to promote attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces, and the Iraqi government," the report said.

"We see little change in Iran's policy of seeking US defeat through direct financial and material support for attacks against US military and civilians in Iraq," it said.

"Meanwhile, foreign fighters -- especially suicide bombers -- continue to use Syrian territory as their main transit route to Iraq," it added, estimating that "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" receives 50-80 suicide bombers each month via Syria.

"Syria can and must do more to shut down these networks."