Gates says Iraq politics disappointing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday he was disappointed with the Iraqi government's lack of significant progress and said the nation's parliament should not have taken a summer break.

He said he had urged the parliament not to recess while U.S. troops were fighting in intense summer heat, trying to buy time for Iraqi political leaders to resolve their differences.

"I said 'for every day that we buy you, we're buying it with American blood. The idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable,'" he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Iraq's parliament recessed this week for the month of August, the same week the main Sunni bloc quit Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government.

The Iraqi government is under pressure to reach a power sharing deal with the country's divided sects, as well as to pass key laws for fair distribution of oil revenues, readmit former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to civil service and set a date for provincial elections.

"The disappointing part of this, of course, is the lack of significant progress at the national level and the Sunni withdrawal from the government," said Gates on CNN's "Late Edition."

Gates was speaking just days after visiting Egypt and Saudi Arabia with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Gates noted the Iraqi government has worked together for over a year and has voted a budget and some other laws.

But on measures seen as crucial by the United States, he said the government's "difficulty in coming to grips and getting this legislation passed is clearly a concern."

Rice said the Iraqi government likely could adopt key internal reforms by majority votes, but has not because leaders want broader consensus that is difficult to achieve.

"If they just took a majority vote, they could probably get through a national oil reconciliation law ... They don't want a 51-49 on constitutional reform. They want to try and bring this about in a way that brings all of the important groups together," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday."

She added, "We've been very clear that we don't think that they have achieved enough and that they need to work harder."

Gates said there was "a possibility" the United States could start drawing down its troops by the end of the year.

An extra 30,000 troops were sent earlier this year to Iraq to give leaders there time to achieve a political settlement.

"For the first time, the commander has enough forces that he can attack all of their basic locations at the same time," Gates said on "Meet the Press."

"It's much more difficult for them to squirt out and escape. We are capturing and killing quite a lot of these people and beginning to reestablish order in neighborhoods."