PRESIDENT BUSH will today hold a White House conference with the commission charting a new direction for American policy in Iraq, even as the Democrats’ clamour to bring the troops home grows louder.

His meeting follows mid-term congressional elections last week when the Republicans were swept out of power on Capitol Hill by voter anger against Mr Bush and the Iraq war. Many Democrats claim to have been given a mandate to withdraw US soldiers.

Carl Levin, who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday: “The people spoke dramatically, overwhelmingly, resoundingly, to change the course in Iraq. As a matter of fact, we need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months.”

The White House sought to play down expectations. Josh Bolten, Mr Bush’s chief of staff, talked merely of making “adjustments” to existing policy. While he said the replacement of Donald Rumsfeld as Defence Secretary by Robert Gates — a former member of the commission — gave the Administration “fresh eyes on the problem”, he insisted that the “ultimate goal remains the same”.

Asked about withdrawing troops, he said: “I don’t think we’re going to be receptive to the notion that there’s a fixed timetable at which we automatically pull out, because that could be a true disaster for the Iraqi people.”

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, emphasised that the Iraq Study Group — which is led by James Baker, a Secretary of State in the Administration of Mr Bush’s father — is not due to present its report until the turn of the year. The group is thought to be leaning towards a solution which would stabilise the country — but leave it neither fully democratic nor secular — while seeking to involve pariah states such as Iran and Syria in a negotiated solution.

But there are doubts about whether the President would accept a report which recommended reversing his objective of creating a democratic Iraq.

While some leaks suggest the report could recommend setting deadlines for the Iraqi Government to take over more responsibility for security, this would not satisfy Democrats pressing for a withdrawal timetable.

Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman who co-chairs the commission with Mr Baker, told The Washington Post: “We need to reach agreement — and that may not be possible.”

Tony Blair, who is expected to speak with the Iraq Study Group by videolink tomorrow, will use a speech tonight to signal his desire for a different approach in the Middle East. This, he will say, should include the chance for Iran and Syria to help solve the regional crisis.

A frequent criticism of Democrats is that they do not have a coherent position on Iraq. Asked about Mr Levin’s proposal to pull US troops out of Iraq by next summer, Howard Dean, the party’s national chairman, replied that an arbitrary timetable was “probably not the way it’s going to work”. He added: “We need to get out of Iraq — the question is how we can do that.”

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