A scheduled meeting between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday was scrapped just hours after disclosure of a White House memo saying Maliki is disingenuous, incompetent or “ignorant.”
White House counselor Dan Bartlett insisted Maliki was not snubbing Bush and said the cancellation had nothing to do with the sharply critical memo. Bartlett emphasized that Malaki will meet with Bush today.
“No one should read too much into this,” Bartlett said in response to questions by The Examiner.
Embarrassed Bush aides said the blunt memo was not a “slap in the face” to Maliki, who is struggling to contain sectarian violence and stand up the fledgling democracy.
One senior administration official called the document, written by national security adviser Steve Hadley, “a very hard look, a probing look at Iraq.” A second official said the memo does not diminish Bush’s ability to work with Maliki.
The classified memo, first disclosed by The New York Times, was written by Hadley on Nov. 8 and was based on his meeting with Maliki in Baghdad on Oct. 30.
“His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans,” Hadley wrote. “But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests 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.”
White House officials tried to convince skeptical reporters Wednesday that Hadley did not really mean to suggest Maliki might be lying or out of the loop. Instead, the officials insisted Hadley had come to believe the third option, that Maliki is simply inept.
“The broad conclusion, as identified in that very memo, is that the big deficiency is capability,” said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But Hadley himself said Maliki is not getting the full picture of what is happening in Iraq.
“The information he receives is undoubtedly skewed by his small circle of Dawa advisers, coloring his actions and interpretation of reality,” he wrote.
Still, the White House appears willing to give the Iraqi leader the benefit of thedoubt.
“The president is convinced of Prime Minister Maliki’s determination and good intentions,” one aide said.
Nonetheless, Hadley’s memo raises grave doubts about Maliki’s prospects for success and, by extension, Bush’s hopes to democratize Iraq.
“We need to determine if Prime Minister Maliki is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others,” Hadley wrote. “Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq?”
“If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? The answers to these questions are key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq.”
Hadley expressed frustration that Maliki is too often feuding with the U.S. instead of battling insurgents. He described the prime minister as “a leader who wanted to be strong, but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so.”
Aides said Bush, who flew to Amman, Jordan, from the NATO summit in Latvia on Wednesday, will ask Maliki how the U.S. can help him get Iraq under control. Options include more troops and financial aid to political players within Iraq who might help shore up Maliki’s government.
