Rice says will hold Iraq PM to his promises

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington would hold Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to his promises to reduce sectarian violence and that it was now time to see results.

A day after Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Maliki could lose his job if he failed to stop communal bloodshed, Rice stepped up pressure on the premier as she began a Middle East tour to drum up support for President George W. Bush's plan to send 21,500 extra troops to Iraq.

Echoing previous remarks that Maliki's government was living on "borrowed time" and that America's patience was running out, Rice said the Iraqi government understood that success in a plan to secure Baghdad was "a very high priority".

"To say that your patience isn't limited is simply to say that the Iraqi government needs to start to show results," Rice told reporters before arriving in Israel yesterday, according to a State Department transcript of her remarks.

"We're going to get an opportunity to see whether or not this is working, whether or not the Iraqis are living up to their obligations."

With Bush's critics saying his new strategy depends too heavily on Maliki keeping promises he failed to keep before, administration officials are piling pressure on Iraqi politicians to solve their differences and avert civil war.

Maliki has vowed to lead a Baghdad operation he says will hit not only insurgents from the once dominant Sunni minority but also militias loyal to fellow Shi'ites - a key demand of Washington and Sunnis, who say Iran is backing Shi'ite gunmen.

Maliki, who leads a fractious coalition of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds, yesterday said his government agreed with Bush's plan for Iraqis to lead the security push although some of his hard-line Shi'ite allies have opposed it.