(New throughout with more details, incorporates IRAQ-DEMOCRATS) By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (Reuters) - The Bush administration urged Iraq's Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds to move forward on reconciliation, as President George W. Bush weighed options for overhauling his Iraq strategy. The White House praised a speech by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in which the Shi'ite prime minister made an overture toward Sunnis by calling for the return of officers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded army. Bush, who plans early next year to announce an overhaul of U.S. Iraq strategy amid growing public frustration with the war, has said he will consider both the military and political approaches. But administration officials have declined to comment on reports this week in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times suggesting Bush is giving strong consideration to a near-term surge in U.S. troop levels. The Journal said on Friday that Bush was leaning toward temporarily sending up to 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq but that some U.S. military commanders had reservations and Maliki disliked the idea. And on Saturday, The New York Times said that military planners and White House budget analysts had been asked to provide options to Bush for increasing U.S. forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more. The article, which cited unnamed U.S. officials, said a final decision had not been made but that the troop surge idea was gaining favor. Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, declined to comment specifically on the reports of increasing troop levels. DEMOCRATIC PRESSURE Democrats, who are set to take control of Congress in January, are stepping up pressure on Bush to begin to draw down to troops. A main recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group was to shift the role U.S. troops from a combat mission to one of training Iraqi troops and said the United States could aim to pull out most U.S. combat forces by early 2008. Delivering Saturday's Democratic radio address, former Defense Secretary William Perry, a member of the Iraq Study Group, said the United States risked being stuck in a "quagmire" in Iraq unless Bush changes course. Bush has held meetings with a number of Iraqi officials, including Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the powerful Shi'ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. On the eve of a Baghdad conference on Iraq reconciliation, Bush on Friday spoke with Maliki via a secure video link. The conference brought together Kurdish, Shi'ite Muslim and Sunni Arab politicians from Baghdad's ruling coalition, and figures from Saddam Hussein's former Baath party, many of whom have lived abroad since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Maliki told the conference that the Iraqi army was "opening the door to former Iraqi army officers." Johndroe said the White House was encouraged by the speech. "The United States urges the parties to the national reconciliation conference to chart a course that brings stability and security to a unified and democratic Iraq," Johndroe said. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer dissolved the Iraqi army, a move experts said drove many Sunni soldiers and officers into the Sunni insurgency. Hashemi, speaking in Washington this week, said the Bush administration had a duty to reform Iraqi security forces infiltrated by militias because of what he said was its mistake of dissolving the Iraqi army. (Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine)
