Iraq close to forming government: Joe Biden

US vice president Joe Biden, in Iraq to mark the end of US combat operations there, said on Wednesday he believed Iraqis were close to forming a government.

"The fact of the matter is I've been speaking with every one of the major leaders," Biden told CBS's "Early Show."

"I've met with every one of the groups that won portions of the vote in the elections and I'm absolutely convinced that they are nearing the ability of forming a government, that will be a government representing the outcome of the election which was very much divided," he added.

Biden spoke to US television networks the day after president Barack Obama, in an address from the Oval Office, declared an end to the seven-year US combat mission in Iraq.

But tensions still fester over Iraq's inconclusive election six months ago and subsequent struggle to form a government.

"There's always a possibility long term if this goes on of creating a (power) vacuum, but the truth of the matter is violence is the lowest level it's been since we arrived in 2003," Biden told CBS.

"It takes a while to put together this coalition but I believe they are close to doing that," he said.

Roughly 50,000 US soldiers still in Iraq are moving to an advisory role in which they will train and support Iraq's army and police. Obama has promised to pull all US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011.

Biden also said he hoped when the US Congress returns from its August recess that Senate Republicans will allow a vote "on a tax cut for small businesses that is being tied up in the Senate," saying, "I just hope we begin to focus more on job creation."

Biden said a point Obama was making in Tuesday night's speech in which he touched on the US economy as well as the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts was "at then end of the day our ability to maintain our national security is in fact dependent on the economy."

"What he was really talking about was just as we turn the page and are cooperating as Democrats and Republicans on the issue of Iraq, we should be doing the same thing on the economy," he said.