As Bush met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan, debate raged in the United States over whether the conflict should be called a civil war and the Pentagon ordered more troops into Baghdad.

The 10-member Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker, said it would reveal its much-awaited findings on December 6.

But the New York Times reported that the panel agreed to recommend withdrawing 15 US combat brigades in Iraq -- the bulk of the US fighting presence -- but leaving 70,000 or more American trainers, logistics experts and members of a rapid reaction force.

The United States currently provides the vast majority of the 160,000-strong multinational force in Iraq.

The group did not say where the troops would go, and did not present a withdrawal timetable, which Bush has opposed. But it made clear that the US military commitment should not be open-ended.

The panel could be a major chance for Bush to overhaul his policy as Iraq slips towards chaos and demands mount to bring US troops home. The recommendations are non-binding.

New US anxiety over the failure of Iraqi to crack down on Shia militias surfaced in a memo by national security adviser Stephen Hadley, which the New York Times published Wednesday.

The memo said "reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

Yet at a joint press conference in Amman, Bush praised Maliki as the "right guy" for the job, and said US forces would stay in Iraq "to get the job done."

Maliki in turn said the two agreed "on the need to speed up the transfer of security responsibilities to the Iraqi forces."

The White House said the memo had nothing to do with Maliki's failure to appear at a planned three-way meeting Wednesday also including Bush and King Abdullah II, with spokesman Tony Snow describing it as "jointly decided."

US military commanders said they were moving about 1,600 US troops to Baghdad in a bid to stem sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital.

General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US commanders were sharing ideas with Maliki on where troops could come from to reinforce Baghdad.

But he denied a report that US officials were considering turning over volatile al-Anbar province to Iraqi security forces and using the marines from there to reinforce Baghdad.

Controversy over how to refer to the raging violence in Iraq raged on meanwhile, as Democrat Senator Jack Reed said a "low level civil war" had been going on for months.

Hoping to stop a further slump in US public support for the Iraq war, Bush and his aides have refused to use the term, even though some US media outlets have now decided to use it.

Anthony Cordesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said that the conflict could only be called civil war.

"If you can find a dictionary whose definition of civil war does not describe this situation as a civil war, I would like to know what it is," he said, as he unveiled a damning report into deteriorating conditions in Iraq.

Focus also turned to the US showdown with Iran, amid speculation Baker's group will recommend talking directly to the US foe, in a bid to ease conditions in Iraq.

In a letter to the American people issued Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

"Now that Iraq has a constitution and an independent assembly and government, would it not be more beneficial to bring the US officers and soldiers home and to spend the astronomical US military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of the American people?" the Iranian leader said.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey dismissed the letter as "a public relations stunt."

Separately in Seoul, South Korea's government announced it was pulling all its 2,300 troops out of Iraq by the end of 2007.

Seoul has the third largest foreign contingent in Iraq after the United States and Britain. On Tuesday they agreed to halve its troop deployment to 1,200 next April.