The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, London

US President George W. Bush said there should be no definitive timetable for the withdrawal of Coalition forces from Iraq, according to a British Sunday newspaper.

Asked by the Observer newspaper about reports that Britain was preparing plans for the reduction of its forces in Iraq, Bush said he did not want the issue tied to a formal schedule.

"There should be no definitive timetable," Bush was quoted as saying. "I am confident that (British Prime Minister Brown), like me, will listen to our commanders to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won't be unraveled by drawdowns that may not be warranted at this point in time."

The Observer said Bush was interviewed in Rome, where the president spent Thursday and Friday as part of his weeklong tour of Europe.

The trip has largely focused on shoring up support for the NATO mission in Afghanistan and a tough line on Iran's nuclear program. However, Bush is also addressing climate change, trade and the situation in Iraq - which Bush said he would discuss with Brown in London.

The British Broadcasting Corp. has reported that Britain could set a date for the withdrawal of its soldiers from Iraq within months, although officials have dismissed the report as speculation.

Britain currently has some 4,000 troops serving in southern Iraq confined to a base on the outskirts of the city of Basra. The military planned to withdraw an additional 1,500 troops from the country, but those plans were shelved after the city was rocked by an upsurge in violence in Basra in March, a point noted by Bush in his interview.

The Observer newspaper cast its interview with Bush as a warning to Brown over further British troop reductions, but the White House insisted that the two leaders - who are due to meet for dinner Sunday evening - were in complete accord.

"There is no daylight between the United States and the United Kingdom on the strategy for Iraq," Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Sunday in Paris where he was traveling with Bush.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record about this issue, said Bush didn't give Brown any kind of warning.

Brown's Downing Street office concurred, saying it was not British policy to set "arbitrary timetables."

Bush and Brown are due to hold talks Monday morning before the president visits Northern Ireland, the last stop on his European tour.