Amman, Jordan – President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki today opened talks originally set for the day before but canceled following disclosure of a memo detailing U.S. doubts about the Iraqi leader’s capabilities and a Baghdad protest of his attendance.
Instead of talks over two days, the stunning turn of events found Bush and al-Maliki meeting for a working breakfast that was to be followed by a longer session and a news conference. The Iraqi prime minister came to Bush’s hotel.
The abrupt cancellation of Wednesday’s opening session was an almost unheard-of development in the high-level diplomatic circles of a U.S. president, a king and a prime minister. Confusion – and conflicting explanations – ensued.
Bush had been scheduled to participate in a three-way session with al-Maliki and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, rearranging his overseas itinerary to be in Amman for both days for talks aimed at reducing the spiral of violence in Iraq.
The last-minute scrub of those talks was not announced until Bush was inside Raghadan Palace and had posed for photographs alone with the king.
Some U.S. officials had appeared surprised by the postponement of Wednesday’s meeting, but they insisted it had nothing to do with the embarrassing memo.
“Absolutely not,” said Dan Bart lett, the counselor to Bush. “No one should read too much into this.”
With Bush intending to press al-Maliki on his strategy for tamping down sectarian violence in Iraq, the publication Wednesday of the leaked memo, written by Bush’s national security adviser, revealed that some within the administration blame al-Maliki’s government for fostering some of the political tension there.
Al-Maliki’s government has intervened in attacks against Shiite-controlled areas, the memo contends, while encouraging attacks on Sunni areas.
And, while Bush has praised Iraq’s nascent democracy, the memo suggests that al-Maliki has tried to concentrate power in Shiite hands while purging Sunnis from a senior staff that does not now “reflect the face of Iraq.”
Moreover, the memo – delivered by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley earlier this month after a visit to Baghdad – questioned al-Maliki’s competence and motives.
“The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests al-Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action,” Had ley wrote in the Nov. 8 memo.
The disclosure of the memo, published by The New York Times on the eve of the summit, thrust the Bush administration into full-bore damage control.
Confidence in al-Maliki
“What we’ll say on the record is, the president has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki,” said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. “The administration is working with the prime minister to improve his capabilities in terms of dealing with the fundamental challenges in Iraq.”
Off the record, senior administration officials were insisting that the White House has not cast “summary judgment” on al-Maliki.
“When you’re in wartime, you’re going to ask tough questions,” one said.
In Iraq, members of al-Maliki’s government raised their own pointed questions about the prime minister’s planned meetings with Bush.
Thirty members of Iraq’s parliament and five Cabinet members loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a key faction of support for al-Maliki, said they were boycotting participation in parliament and the government to protest al-Maliki’s meeting with the U.S. president. Al-Sadr and his allies initially had threatened to quit the government and parliament if the prime minister carried through with the Amman summit.
But they scaled back their protest to a mere suspension of participation, which left open the possibility that they would return to their posts.
The Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.
