WASHINGTON, Feb 3: President George Bush deserves praise for setting ambitious foreign and domestic goals in his second term, but his State of the Union speech did not fully address some issues and omitted other more important ones, leading US dailies said on Thursday.

While the speech will be remembered for Mr Bush's "call to stay the course in Iraq and change the course of Social Security", wrote The New York Times, "on both counts, Mr Bush fudged the most critical points".

Hinging US withdrawal from Iraq on training better Iraqi security forces "is absolutely not enough" without demanding maximum effort from the new government in creating a state "that recognizes the rights and needs of all its citizens", the daily said.

Mr Bush's insistence that it is inappropriate to set a timetable for withdrawal "obscures the very immediate need to set goals, and to make it clear to the Iraqis that the continued presence of American forces depends on their meeting those goals".

The Times branded Mr Bush's speech as "yet another feel-good paean to freedom and democracy that did little to show the American people an exit strategy for United States troops, or to show the Iraqis what we expect from them next".

The daily was also "disheartened" by Mr Bush's "failure to mention development aid to Africa and virtually any other country that is not identified as a prime source of terrorism".

The Washington Post welcomed what it saw as a push for a two-track regional transformation: "confrontation with such hostile authoritarian regimes as Syria and Iran, and gentle prodding of allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

"Remarkably, almost all the world outside the greater Middle East - Russia, China, Africa, Latin America - went unmentioned," as did US foreign aid "beyond Palestine". "Those topics appeared to fall victim to Mr Bush's desire to refocus attention on domestic policy, an ambition that a still-dangerous world may complicate during the coming year," warned The Washington Post.

On Mr Bush's intention to privatize the US pension system, the president proposed "sensible approaches" but also "put out numbers that made the transitional costs ... artificially low".

The New York Times noted that Mr Bush, when speaking of social security, no longer uses the term privatize "because polls showed that the American people reacted badly to the concept.

"Mr Bush now likes the term 'wise and effective reform'. Like his rhetoric, his proposals for Social Security continue to stress the vague and glossy," added the Times. "Bush wants to be known as a president willing to take on big tasks," said USA Today. "He deserves credit for raising tough issues, particularly Social Security" and reducing the budget deficit. -AFP