Blair and Bush at the White House on Thursday. (AFP)

Washington, Dec. 7 (Reuters): President George W. Bush said today a new strategy was required in Iraq but he would await further reviews beyond the scathing Iraq Study Group report before determining a new way forward.

“I believe we need a new approach,” Bush said during a press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his closest ally on the Iraq war.

“And that’s why I’ve tasked the Pentagon to analyse a way forward. That’s why Prime Minister Blair is here to talk about the way forward, so we can achieve the objective, which is an Iraq which can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself and be an ally in the war on terror.”

The high-level panel report issued yesterday advised Bush to begin to withdraw US combat forces from Iraq and to push the Iraqi government toward independence and launching a diplomatic push that would include Iran and Syria and a sustained US commitment to Arab-Israeli peace.

While Bush welcomed the report as “very constructive,” he made clear he was waiting for separate Pentagon and state department reviews before proceeding with a change in course.

“We’ve got to get the right way forward, this is where Baker-Hamilton helps,” Bush said, referring to the co-chairmen of the bipartisan panel, former secretary of state James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton.

US voters were widely seen as repudiating Bush’s approach in Iraq in November 7 elections in which his Republican Party lost control of the US Congress and Blair has been under fire at home for his staunch support of Washington. “I think the Baker-Hamilton report allows us to, as the situation's evolved in Iraq, to evolve our strategy,” Blair said.

The meeting in Washington took place amid continuing violence in Iraq, described by Bush as “unsettling”. “It’s bad in Iraq,“ he acknowledged.

The US military confirmed that at least 11 US soldiers were killed this week, in one of the worst spates of violence suffered by US forces. Scores of Iraqi civilians also die each week in sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shias.