Bush presses Iraq leaders

WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- U.S. President Bush spoke with Iraq's top government leaders Tuesday, urging them to work "aggressively" on economic, political and social reforms.

The White House said the calls were made separately to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Adil Abd al-Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashemi, and lasted a total of about 40 minutes.

"All the conversations were about ongoing political progress and developments within Iraq; the president encouraging all of them to move not only aggressively forward, but also move together on issues of concern," spokesman Tony Snow said.

Iraq government progress is key to administration strategy to bring security to the country, and their progress -- or lack of -- on governance benchmarks are integral to congressional debates on continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

Those debates will increase in intensity in the fall when Congress will again deal with funding of military operations and receive a report by the coalition commander in Iraq, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, on successes and failures of the new military "surge" strategy to give the government time to implement reforms.

High among reforms demanded by Congress and the administration is legislation for the sharing of oil revenues among all of Iraq's geographic regions and ethnic groups. Another is better performance by Iraqi troops in handling security duties.

Snow said the leaders told Bush a proposed law on oil had been sent to the legislature.

"The president nonetheless encouraged them to keep moving on other areas of political interest, including constitutional and political reform ... ," he said.