But Mr Bush said no final decisions had been made on troop levels and said he would not follow “artificial timetables” to gauge whether it was time to make reductions.

The US President arrived in Sydney on September 4, after making a surprise trip to Iraq that comes a week before the top US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, and US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are to deliver crucial testimony to the US Congress on the progress there.

Mr Bush saw achievements in bringing down the levels of violence and on reconciling the country's warring factions, a view much more upbeat than that of a US Congressional report on September 4 that found still-high levels of violence and little progress on the political front.