U.S - Washington Post: Bush-Maliki Summit Delayed

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Iraqi Leader's Ability to Control Sectarian Violence Questioned
By Michael Abramowitz, Sudarsan Raghavan and Debbi WilgorenWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, November 29, 2006; 6:04 PM
AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 29 -- President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not meet as planned on Wednesday, but the two leaders are scheduled to meet Thursday, amid turmoil within Iraq's coalition government and questions about U.S. confidence in Maliki's leadership.
The scratched meeting came on the day that a bloc of Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr launched a boycott of their governmental duties to protest Maliki's decision to attend the summit in Jordan with Bush. It also coincided with the public disclosure of a memo by White House adviser Stephen J. Hadley questioning Maliki's ability to control the raging sectarian violence in his country.

White House officials insisted the cancellation had nothing to do with Maliki's political problems at home or the leak of the Hadley memo. Instead, they said, the meeting was put off to allow more productive time in Jordan by meeting separately with Maliki and King Abdullah II.
White House counselor Dan Bartlett Bartlett said Maliki had already had a productive bilateral meeting with King Abdullah on Wednesday, and both felt "there was not an agenda for the three for a trilateral that they felt was necessary."
"No one should read too much into this," Bartlett said. "This gives an opprtunity for the king and the president to catch up on issues that are in the interests of Jordan and the United States."
"There's no snub" by Maliki, White House press secretary Tony Snow said. He said he knew nothing of an Associated Press report quoting unnamed officials traveling with Maliki as saying the prime minister did not want a third party involved in talks about the U.S.-Iraqi relationship.
As recently as this afternoon, it appeared the White House was planning to go ahead with a three-way meeting between Maliki, Bush and King Abdullah. But when reporters showed up at the palace in Jordan where Bush was supposed to meet this evening with Maliki and the King, they were told by Bartlett that the three-way meeting was off.
At a contentious briefing with the White House press corps here, two senior administration officials said all the parties involved believed it would be more productive to have two separate meetings, one between Bush and Abdullah and one between Bush and Maliki. They noted a considerable agenda on the table between Bush and Abdullah, including broader Middle East peace initiatives, as well as the situation in Lebanon. "You have one shot at dealing with the king," one senior official said.
After the briefing, another senior official returned to the press filing center with more details about the cancellation, saying that the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, received word in the afternoon from the Jordanians and the Iraqis that there was no need for a three-way meeting--and he called Air Force One with the news. This official said President Bush was fine with this change When he landed in Amman, Bush went ahead with a private meeting with the King and a larger dinner that included top aides.The focus was the Israel-Palestine dispute and the situation in Lebanon.
The change in plans was announced the same day as Hadley's classified memo appeared in the New York Times in which Hadley questions whether Maliki "is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others."
Before leaving Latvia for Amman Wednesday morning, aides to the president sought to play down the significance of the memo. One senior administration official suggested that the major issue with Maliki was one of "capabilities, not intentions." The official said discussions between Bush and Maliki would focus on how to strengthen the Iraqi government so it has the ability to take over more of the responsibility for security, curb the power of private militias and, thus, reduce sectarian violence.
The plan change also came as a bloc of Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr launched a boycott of their governmental duties to protest Maliki's decision to attend the summit in Jordan with Bush.

(cont'd: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112900324.html)