Maliki cancels dinner meeting with Bush

Jordan's King Abdullah II met today with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 29 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq and King Abdullah II of Jordan abruptly backed out of a meeting with President Bush on Wednesday, leaving the White House scrambling to explain why a carefully planned summit meeting had suddenly been cut from two days to one.

The decision occurred on a day that a classified White House memorandum expressing doubts about Mr. Maliki was disclosed and after Iraqi officials loyal to a powerful Shiite cleric said they were suspending participation in the Maliki government because he had ignored their request to cancel the Bush meeting entirely.

The president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were already aboard Air Force One, on the way to Amman from Riga, Latvia, where they had been attending a NATO summit meeting, when they received the news by telephone from the United States ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. The White House insisted Mr. Bush was not upset and had not been snubbed.

“Absolutely not,” said Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president.

With the Wednesday night meeting with the king canceled, Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki still intend to have breakfast together here Thursday. A senior White House official said that after the king and Mr. Maliki had held a productive private meeting earlier in the day, they decided that a three-way session with Mr. Bush was not “the best use of time.”

In Baghdad, the immediate effect of the walkout by officials loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric, was unclear. But the departure of the Sadr followers — 30 Parliament members and six ministers — raises questions about the viability of the fragile coalition government, made up of feuding blocs of religious Shiites, religious Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secularists.

The day’s events underscore the delicate task Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki face as they head into Thursday’s meeting. As tensions rise in Iraq, friction has grown between the leaders, despite Mr. Bush’s insistence that he has faith in Mr. Maliki...

The White House tacked the hastily planned trip to Amman onto Mr. Bush’s swing through the Baltics so he could meet Mr. Maliki on safe ground. But the careful orchestration leading up to the Bush-Maliki summit meeting — including a news conference Tuesday in Estonia, where Mr. Bush promised to press the Iraqi prime minister on his strategy for stability — was upended when The New York Times published the classified assessment of Mr. Maliki in Wednesday’s issue.

The memo, written by the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said that while Mr. Maliki seemed to have good intentions when talking with Americans, “the reality on the streets suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what’s going on, misrepresenting his intentions or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient.”

Publication of the memorandum just as Mr. Bush was to see Mr. Maliki left the White House struggling to put a positive spin on the news on a day when it had hoped to highlight a decision by NATO members that would lift some restrictions on troops operating in Afghanistan...

Later, after Mr. Maliki canceled, senior officials insisted the document had nothing to do with it. “The president and Prime Minister Maliki will have a very robust and lengthy dialogue tomorrow morning,” Mr. Bartlett said in Amman, adding, “No one should read too much into this.”

But it was impossible not to read some palace intrigue into the scrubbing of such a meeting, especially when it involved a White House known for its meticulous planning.

Read the rest at the NY Times

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