By Steve Holland WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's national security adviser said on Tuesday Iraq's government needs to move faster to bring stability to Iraq and predicted violence at some level will persist beyond Bush's presidency. With Iraq a key factor in Nov. 7 elections in which Bush's Republicans are at risk of losing control of the U.S. Congress, his administration is urging Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make progress on security and the economy. National security adviser Stephen Hadley said the Iraqi government is beginning to make the hard decisions necessary but added, "I think they've got to do more and they've got to do (it) faster. And I think if you talk to Prime Minister Maliki, he would say the same thing." Hadley told National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" he agreed with Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner that "we're not seeing the progress we would like" in Iraq. In Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Iraqi leaders had agreed to a timetable of political and security measures and he expected "significant progress" on the steps in the next 12 months. Khalilzad described the steps as benchmarks and milestones rather than conditions and spoke of timelines rather than deadlines. Signs of progress would include making changes to the constitution, disbanding militias, enacting a new law on sharing the revenues from Iraq's massive oil reserves and political reconciliation between warring parties. Hadley said that by the time Bush leaves office in January 2009, the president would like to see democratic institutions in Iraq, a pact between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds, and a government able to provide greater economic prosperity and security. Violence will persist but hopefully can be contained, he said. "Is there going to be peace, is there going to be ... the end of any violence? Of course not. This violence is going to go on for a long time," he said, citing the case of Colombia's protracted conflict with Marxist rebels. "But what you hope for is a situation where Iraqi government institutions and Iraqi security forces can manage and contain the violence," he said.
