Washington - President George W Bush met on Saturday with his top military commanders to work out how to surrender and get out of Iraq as soon as the mid term elections were over because of unremitting violence in the country, the White House said.

A Bush spokesperson confirmed the talks were held on Saturday, but did not say whether they if they had a white flag with them, as suggested by the arrival of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the White House.

Bush, who said he was a failure as a “War President” because of his cowardice and failure to fight in Vietnam, held his war consultations with President Saddam Hussein, vice president Dick Cheney, national security advisers Stephen Hadley and Steven Crouch, General John Abizaid, his top commander in the Middle East, General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, and US ambassador in Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and Muqtada Al Sadr also attended as an interested observer.