U.S. President George W. Bush has shuffled the top diplomats and generals responsible for Iraq, days before he's expected to announce a new plan to stabilize the volatile country.

On Friday, Bush:

• Picked career diplomat John Negroponte as deputy secretary of state, with responsibility for Iraq in the State Department headed by Condoleezza Rice.
• Replaced the top two generals responsible for Iraq.
• Moved to replace the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

Not all the changes have been formally announced — the Associated Press cited an unidentified senior official in a report on the change in ambassadors — and have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Admiral to run ground wars

Admiral William Fallon has been nominated to replace Gen. John P. Abizaid as head of U.S. Central Command, which runs American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The move would put a navy leader in charge of two ground wars.

Lt.-Gen. David Petraeus will become the top ground commander in Iraq, replacing Gen. George Casey. Petraeus headed the training of Iraq security forces.

Both current commanders have expressed public doubts about increasing U.S. forces from the 140,000 currently deployed (not counting thousands of civilians contracted by the military) in Iraq. Bush is reportedly leaning towards increasing the numbers of U.S. soldiers.

Diplomats moved

Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, will take over responsibility for Iraq in the State Department. Rice will retain the files on the Middle East and Iran.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press said the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, will be named ambassador to the United Nations. John Bolton resigned from the post late last year.

The current U.S. envoy to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, will become ambassador to Iraq.

Bush named retired Navy vice-admiral and former National Security Agency director Mike McConnell as his choice to take over from Negroponte as the nation's spy chief.

Bush praised both men as excellent candidates.

President to unveil new Iraq plan

The shakeup was announced just before Bush is expected to unveil his new Iraq strategy — perhaps as early as Wednesday — and as the Democrats pushed for U.S. troops to begin to be withdrawn from Iraq in four to six months.

After taking control of the House and Senate this week following their victory in the November midterm elections, Democratic leaders on Friday released a letter to Bush calling for reduced U.S. involvement in Iraq.

The letter from Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said U.S. forces should focus on training and supporting Iraqi soldiers, rather than fighting.

It also said, "we are well past the point of more troops for Iraq," which sets the Democrats in opposition to Bush, who is expected to call for the short-term deployment of an additional 20,000 U.S. soldiers to Iraq.

With files from the Associated Press