Bush met for lunch with leaders of the Democratic Party, which appeared to have won control of both houses of the US legislature for the first time in 12 years after national elections Tuesday.
'We'll discuss the way forward for our country. It is our responsibility to put the elections behind us and work together on the great issues facing America,' Bush said after chairing a cabinet meeting at the White House.
Heading the lunch guest list was Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat in line to become the first female speaker of the US House of Representatives. She sharply criticized Bush and his Iraq policy during the campaign.
Bush planned to meet Friday with Democratic leaders from the Senate, where the latest vote counts indicated a one-seat majority for the Democrats.
Speculation that Bush would move toward the centre-left Democrats and change course in Iraq raged in Washington, a day after Bush announced that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would resign.
In dropping his longest-serving cabinet member and a chief architect of the war in Iraq, Bush said he was seeking a 'fresh perspective' at the Pentagon.
'I'm open to any idea or suggestion that will help us achieve our goals of defeating the terrorists and ensuring that Iraq's democratic government succeeds,' Bush said Thursday after conferring with his cabinet at the White House.
Rumsfeld will stay in his position until his successor Robert Gates, a former CIA director, takes over.
Significantly, Bush noted Wednesday that Gates is a member of a bipartisan panel co-led by former US secretary of state James Baker III that is considering options for a new approach in Iraq.
Bush insists he will not budge from his goal of 'victory' in violence-torn Iraq, where nearly 150,000 US troops are fighting insurgents while trying to prevent a full-blown civil war. He has defined victory as an Iraq that can defend and govern itself and has rejected calls by Democrats to set a timetable for a US troop withdrawal.
But he also said several times Wednesday that he would 'work with' the Baker commission and planned to meet its members early next week.
US Senator Joseph Lieberman, a prominent Democrat who voted with Bush's Republicans in October 2002 to authorize a US invasion of Iraq, hinted that the panel could offer Bush a face-saving solution for a strategy to start disengaging from Iraq.
'I think that bipartisan report may be a rallying point, a focus for the kind of alteration in our policy in Iraq that a lot of us would like to see,' Lieberman told reporters Wednesday in his home state of Connecticut.
© 2003 - 2006 by Monsters and Critics.com, WotR Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All photos are copyright their respective owners and are used under license or with permission. * Note M&C cannot be held responsible for the content on other Web Sites.
Arts - Books - DVD - Forums - Home - Movies - Music - People & Celebrity - Science - Soundtracks - Sport - Tech - TV - World News
About Us - The Team - Advertise - Contact - Join the Team - Privacy - RSS Feeds - Site Map - Terms & Conditions - Webmasters
Servers supplied by Servint
