George Bush pledges for Middle East peace within a year

After a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday, Mr Bush insisted: "I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office.

"I am confident that with proper help the state of Palestine will emerge."

The visit to Israel and the West Bank - his first since taking office in 2001 - is being seen as a final attempt to rebuild his reputation, which has been tarnished by the Iraq war, and to create a lasting foreign policy legacy.

"I'm on a timetable," he told reporters.

"I've got 12 months."

He also surprised many observers by referring to Israel's 40-year control over Palestinian territories as an "occupation".

"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967," he said.

Mr Bush also criticised Israel for security policies which could carve up Palestinian territory into unworkable or ungovernable chunks.

"Swiss cheese isn't going to work when it comes to the outline of a state," he said.

"To be viable, a future Palestinian state must have contiguous territory."

Mr Bush did acknowledge, however, that enormous obstacles stand in the way of a lasting peace, in particular, the militant Islamic group Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June and denies the existence of Israel.

Hamas, Mr Bush said, had been elected to help improve the lot of Palestinians, but "has delivered nothing but misery".

While Mr Bush was speaking in Ramallah, effigies of him were being burned in Gaza where Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, was quick to dismiss hopes of peace.

"This meeting was for public relations only, it was an empty meeting without results, only more dreams and waste of time," he said.

"The meeting focused on the so-called security topics, which mean to act against the interests of the Palestinian majority and the resistance."

Mr Bush was said to have been forthright during his meeting with Mr Abbas, saying later: "The question is whether or not hard issues can be resolved and the vision emerges, so that the choice is clear amongst the Palestinians."

U.S. fighter jets have dropped around 40,000lb of bombs on suspected Al Qaeda targets on the edge of Baghdad in a tenminute air strike.

The attack on the Arab Jabour district, said to be a safe haven for Al Qaeda in Iraq, was part of Operation Phantom Phoenix launched on Tuesday.

Nine U.S. soldiers have been killed since the start of the operation.