Bush has nominated Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld. His confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee is on Tuesday.

As pressure builds for a new strategy, the report from the Iraq Study Group increasingly is viewed as perhaps clearing the way for a US exit strategy in Iraq. Hadley, though, said the review will be just one factor the White House considers, along with views of congressional leaders, US military commanders and the Iraqi government.

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Once the president is comfortable on how to proceed, he will spell out his plan publicly in the coming weeks, Hadley said.

Bush repeatedly has rejected a wholesale pullout or what he calls artificial deadlines, saying Thursday, "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."

Hadley said Bush was trying to address those who contend the commission "was just going to be cover for an American withdrawal, almost regardless of what was happening on the ground. And the president needed, and felt he needed to stop that right there. That isn't graceful withdrawal, that's cut and run. And, of course, as the president's said, cut and run is not his cup of tea."

Hadley said the goal remains to shift responsibility to Iraqi forces, an increasing point of emphasis as the unpopular war rolls on.

Bush, after a meeting last week in Jordan, expressed confidence that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government can lead the country toward peace with support from the United States.

Yet Hadley was left Sunday to defend his own memo that called that very point into question.

Written on Nov. 8 but disclosed just before Bush's meeting with the Iraqi leader, the memo described al-Maliki as "either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

Hadley said Sunday about the memo: "I made an assessment, raised a number of questions, hard questions that should have been raised. But if you look at that memo and if you look at what the president said in the press conference after the meeting with Prime Minister Maliki, it is clear that this government shares our objective for Iraq and has the will and desire to take responsibility."

The White House maintains that, taken as a whole, the memo was an expression of support for al-Maliki. Hadley rejected the suggestion that Bush administration hadn't shown much displeasure about the leak -- or even that it had been authorized to pressure al-Maliki.

"It's unconscionable," he said. "It's an effort to embarrass those two leaders. It could have cast a pall over this meeting."

In Congress, Democrats and Republican continue to wrestle with how and when to withdraw troops without leaving a mess in Iraq, the kind of instability that could jeopardize the region and the United States.

The outgoing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said Bush is "listening, learning, and he's open to take a change in course."

Bush says the US will stay in Iraq as long as it takes to get the job done. That is the wrong message to Iraqis, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"It tells them that it's not their responsibility, it's ours," said Levin, pushing for the start of a phased troop withdrawal.

"Nothing has changed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about the president. "He said he'll continue to be flexible. But he hasn't been flexible. He doesn't listen. And that's just a fact."

Hadley appeared on ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press," and `Face the Nation" on CBS. Warner and Levin were on NBC, Biden was on "Fox News Sunday" while Feinstein appeared on "Late Edition" on CNN.

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