Gates, on his seventh trip to Iraq, will meet the head of US armed forces in the country, General David Petraeus, to discuss prospects for a possible drawdown of American troops.

"I will obviously be interested in hearing General Petraeus about his evaluation, where he stands and what more work he feels he needs to do before he is ready to come back with his recommendations," he told reporters travelling with him on the plane from Germany to Iraq.

Gates, who was last in Iraq in December, is due to give his recommendations to the US Congress in April about troop numbers in Iraq, where the military currently has a force of about 160,000.

About 20,000 are expected to go hom by July.

In Baghdad, Gates will also meet Iraqi leaders to discuss progress on the political front, including the adoption of legislation such as a controversial reconciliation law which allows members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party to return to public life.

He arrived in Iraq shortly before the one-year anniversary of a US troop surge designed to improve security in Baghdad, although the country continues to battle a deadly insurgency.

Underscoring the continued violence, 23 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in a marketplace in a village in central Iraq around the time of Gates's arrival.

The frequency of attacks on US troops in the Iraqi capital has picked up noticeably in the past weeks, with 13 killed so far this month. Last month 40 soldiers died, almost double the number killed in December and on a par with casualty figures recorded in October and November.

A total of 3,957 have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.

In an interview earlier Sunday, US President George W. Bush acknowledged the United States would seek a military presence in Iraq for "years" but pledged he would not establish permanent bases.

Bush brushed aside concerns expressed by critics that a Status of Forces Agreement Washington is discussing with the Baghdad goverment would commit future US presidents to a long-term deployment in Iraq.

"We won't have permanent bases," Bush told Fox New television.

Last week, Gates said the United States would make no commitments to the defence of Iraq in the status of forces agreement.

Gates had previously said the agreement, which is expected to be discussed by the two sides at a meeting later this month, would not provide for permanent bases in Iraq or establish US force levels.

The US military presence in Iraq is currently validated by a UN Security Council resolution which expires December 31. The status of forces agreement would replace it.

Talks on the new agreement will be controversial in the United States, where Bush will in effect be negotiating on behalf of whoever succeeds him in the White House in January 2009.

The opposition Democratic Party candidates for the presidency have promised to rapidly withdraw remaining US forces from Iraq, but may find their margin of manoeuvre limited by any prior agreement.

Gates said last week it would be difficult to persuade Iraq to accept even a short extension of the UN resolution to allow a new US administration to negotiate the status of forces agreement.

"They don't want permanent bases either. They are interested in asserting their sovereignty," he said.

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