RIGA, LATVIA - President Bush is asking embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at their summit in Jordan how best to train Iraqi forces faster so they can shoulder more responsibility for securing the nation torn apart by escalating violence.

US President George W. Bush, left, shares a word with Supreme Allied Commander Europe, US General James L. Jones, right, and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Canadian General Raymond Henault, center, during a dinner prior to a NATO summit in Riga, Tuesday Nov. 28, 2006. [AP]

The president, under pressure on both sides of the Atlantic to find a new blueprint for the war, wants to hear al-Maliki's plan for mending his nation's bitter sectarian divide and how the two leaders can chart a stable future for the fragile government.

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Bush was holding two days of urgent talks with al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan. The president was flying there Wednesday from this Baltic capital where the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan has dominated talks at a NATO summit.

Twenty-four hours after watching ballet Tuesday night at an elegant Latvian opera house awash in blue floodlights, Bush was scheduled to be at Raghadan Palace, high on a hill in the Jordanian capital, grappling with the problems in Iraq where US involvement now exceeds the length of America's participation in World War II.

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