U.S. to join regional talks on Iraq

WASHINGTON — In a diplomatic turnabout, the Bush administration will join an Iraq-sponsored "neighbors meeting" with Iran and Syria, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

It marked a change of approach by the United States, which has resisted calls by members of Congress and by a bipartisan Iraq review group to include Iran and Syria in talks designed to stabilize Iraq.

The move came amid growing discontent over the war, even as President Bush rushes an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq and congressional Democrats struggle to settle on their next steps to end U.S. participation.

The administration said its decision to take part in the Iraq conference did not represent a change of heart, although the White House has accused both Iran and Syria of deadly meddling in the war. "We've always been inclined to participate in an Iraqi-led conference," White House counselor Dan Bartlett said.

The administration in recent weeks has increased its criticism of Iran's role in Iraq, charging it with supplying advanced technologies for the most lethal form of roadside bombs. The administration has accused Syria of harboring anti-Iraqi government forces and allowing weapons to cross its border.

Rice announced U.S. support for the Iraq meeting, to be held in Baghdad next month, at a Senate hearing in which Democrats pressed her and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to explain what progress is being made in the Baghdad security crackdown and how soon U.S. troops will be coming home.

Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders are backing away from a proposal to scale back U.S. involvement in Iraq by withholding money for the war effort.

"There is no end, I say, no end in sight," exclaimed Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the Appropriations Committee chairman. He decried the spending of $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan amid raging sectarian and insurgent violence.

In Iraq, U.S.-led strike forces seized suspected Shiite death squad bosses Tuesday in raids that tested the fragile bonds between the government and a powerful militia faction allowing the Baghdad security crackdown to move ahead.

The sweeps through the Sadr City slum were part of highly sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has ridiculed the 2-week-old campaign for failing to halt bombings by suspected Sunni insurgents against Shiite civilians.