As Bush's centre-right Republicans conceded control of the US Senate, the White House said the Democrats - bitterly opposed to the war in Iraq, but also divided - shared responsibility for a solution.
'And it's going to be interesting, because now Democrats are stakeholders in this,' White House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding that Bush is open to 'any suggestions about how to get this done more effectively.'
Bush met for lunch Thursday at the White House with Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat in line to become the first female speaker of the House after Tuesday's legislative elections. Afterward, she and Bush exchanged smiles and pledged cooperation.
'But the challenges still remain,' Bush told reporters. 'And, therefore, we're going to work together to address those challenges in a constructive way.'
Pelosi said centre-left Democratic leaders 'extended the hand of friendship' - an about-face for the California politician, who has called Bush 'oblivious' and 'dangerous.' Bush, in turn, has claimed that terrorists would win if Pelosi became leader of the House.
Hours later, the Republican candidate in the last open Senate race conceded defeat, giving the Democrats a 51-49 edge in the upper chamber in addition to the House majority they already sealed.
Democratic challenger James Webb had a razor-thin lead over the Virginia Republican Senator George Allen. Allen said he was giving up because 'a recount could drag out all the way to Christmas.'
Even if the opposing sides work together once the newly elected Congress convenes in January, no sudden US exit is likely from violence-torn Iraq is likely, where nearly 150,000 troops are fighting insurgents while trying to prevent a full-blown civil war.
Bush insists he will not budge from his goal of 'victory' - defined as an Iraq that can defend and govern itself - and has rejected Democrats' calls for a timetable to bring US troops home.
But speculation that he would move toward the Democrats and change course in Iraq raged in Washington, a day after Bush announced that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would resign. As he dropped his longest-serving cabinet member and chief architect of the war in Iraq, Bush said he wanted 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 keep his job until his successor Robert Gates, a former CIA director, is confirmed by the US Senate.
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.
He also said several times Wednesday that he would work with the Baker commission and planned to meet its members early next week. The group is expected to release their report in early December.
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.
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