Biden, on the second day of a surprise visit to Baghdad, urged them to discount personal ambitions and resist pressure from neighbouring states by choosing a government that would "honour the trust" that Iraqi voters had placed in them.

He made his comments after head-to-head meetings with the two men whose feud over who as prime minister should lead Iraq's new government has deadlocked the political process.

Biden also stressed America had no "hidden agenda" over the outcome of the dispute which has overshadowed a phased withdrawal of US combat troops after seven years of operations since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Biden met first with Iyad Allawi, a former prime minister who narrowly beat incumbent premier Nuri al-Maliki into second place in the March 7 election.

After the talks, the US leader at an evening reception appealed to them and other politicians to break the impasse.

"My plea to you is finish what you started," Biden told the gathering which included President Jalal Talabani, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.

"In my humble opinion, in order for you to achieve your goals you must have all communities' voices represented in this new government, proportionately.

"Iraqiya, State of Law, Iraqi National Alliance, the Kurdistan Alliance, all are going to have to play a meaningful role in this new government for it to work," he said, referring to the country's major political blocs.

Allawi, a Shiite, insists as the election's narrow victor that he has the right to become premier, especially as his broadly secular Iraqiya coalition had strong backing in Sunni-dominated provinces.

He has also warned a failure to see Sunni voters' properly represented in power could reignite the sectarian violence that saw tens of thousands killed.

But Biden, whose speech was quickly followed by several mortars landing in the Green Zone where the US Embassy is based, stressed real progress could only be made if leaders put the national interest before all others.

"Subordinating individual interest is fundamental to the success of any nation," he said.

"You should not, and I am sure you will not, let any state, or the United States or any state in the region dictate what will become of you all."

Biden's remarks came just hours after the firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr called on Iraqi leaders not to be swayed by the United States.

"I advise Allawi and Maliki not to allow the occupier to intervene," said Sadr, whose militia, the Mahdi Army, has repeatedly clashed with US forces since the invasion.

"The talks should ensure the Iraqi agenda, not the American agenda," the Iran-based cleric said in a statement issued from his office in the holy city of Najaf in central Iraq.

Several hundred of Sadr's supporters held a protest in Kufa, also central Iraq, against Biden's visit.

A senior US administration official travelling with Biden, said the vice president had delivered a consistent message in his talks with Allawi and Maliki.

"We are not disengaging from Iraq, our engagement is changing. We are moving from a military lead to a civilian lead," said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"He (Biden) made it very clear that we have no candidates, we have no preferred outcomes. There was no discussion of an American plan for Iraq because there isn't one."

There are currently 77,500 American soldiers in Iraq but all combat troops are due out by September 1, leaving the training and advisory force of 50,000 behind who are themselves scheduled to withdraw by December 2011.

Speaking earlier to US soldiers in the rotunda of Al-Fao Palace, a jewel in the era of ousted Iraqi president Saddam that is now part of US military base Camp Victory, just north of Baghdad, an upbeat Biden praised the military.

"Here we are in the hunting lodge of a dictator who subjugated a people, who in fact stood for everything that we don't stand for. And we are in the middle of this marble palace, making a lie of everything that he stood for," he said at the Independence Day celebration.

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