By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
10:20 AM PST, November 28, 2006
RIGA, Latvia -- With violence raging in Iraq and pressure mounting at home for a solution, President Bush said today that he expects to hear some answers from the Iraqi prime minister when the two leaders meet later this week to discuss how to stem the bloodshed.
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"My questions to him will be: What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?" Bush said, addressing reporters in the Estonian capital of Tillann on the first day an overseas swing that included afternoon meetings in Latvia's capital with fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"I will ask him: What is required and what is your strategy to be a country which can govern itself and sustain itself?"
Bush deflected a question about whether the eruption of violence in Iraq should be called a "civil war," a phrase the White House has sought to avoid in hopes of framing the conflict as a battle against terrorism rather than a more complex clash between factions in the Iraqi government.
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