The president was advised on how to handle the aftermath of a British pullout and the end of steadfast support from London, said the broadsheet, citing senior officials.

Departing Prime Minister Tony Blair is due to step down on June 27 after a decade in power, with finance minister Brown set to take over.

Under Blair, Britain has been the United States' staunchest ally in the war in Iraq and its key partner in the decision to invade the country in March 2003.

Senior officials in the US National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department have expressed their fears about Brown, The Sunday Telegraph said.

"There is a sense of foreboding," an unnamed senior official was quoted as saying.

"We don't know if he will be there when we need him. We expect a gesture that will greatly weaken the United States government's position."

And Mark Kirk, a congressman in Bush's Republican party who discussed Iraq policy at the White House last week, said: "The American view is that's he's a much weaker political leader than Blair. There's the fear in Washington that he won't be as strong an ally."

"The report is baseless," a US administration official said from Bush's Crawford ranch in Texas, where the president was spending the weekend. The official, who did not want to be named, declined to elaborate.

Blair was in Washington this week for his last talks with Bush, before jetting to Iraq for talks with political leaders in Baghdad and a visit to British troops in the main southern city of Basra.

"I have no doubt at all that Britain will remain steadfast in its support for Iraq," the prime minister said there.

"Even when I leave government I am sure that support will continue."

A source close to Brown said: "These fears are unfounded. Gordon is a committed Atlanticist who wants to strengthen and deepen our ties with America around our shared values, and who wants to persuade the rest of Europe to work in closer co-operation with America."

British troop numbers in Iraq are being scaled down from 7,100 to 5,500 this year.

Meanwhile The Sunday Times newspaper said that British officials were holding secret talks with leading insurgents in Iraq aimed at dividing them from the Al-Qaeda terror network in a bid to curb sectarian violence.

The weekly said that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was believed to be the driving force behind the talks and British ambassador Dominic Asquith was said to have been co-ordinating them over recent months.

"Apart from Al-Qaeda, all the main insurgent groups took part," claimed a Kurdish source close to the discussions.

"Representatives of the groups have met with the British several times in recent months," the source told the broadsheet.

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