Bush - Maliki Summit Postponed

The meeting between Bush and Iraqi prime minister Maliki has been postponed until Thursday, according to the White House. No news yet on who initiated the postponement.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett denied that the move was a snub by al-Maliki or was related to the leak of a White House memo questioning the prime minister's capacity for controlling violence in Iraq.

"Absolutely not," Bartlett said." He said the king and the prime minister had met before Bush arrived from a NATO summit in Latvia. "It negated the purpose for a meeting of the three of them," Bartlett said.

Bartlett said that Wednesday night's three-way meeting had always been planned as "more of a social meeting" and that Bush and Maliki on Thursday would have a "robust" meeting on their own.

Dan lies worse than my youngest kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The delay will mean an opportunity to ratchet up the pressure on Maliki created by judicious "leaks", making sure he toes the White House line. Expect that line to include a radical diversion away from support for Sadr and the Mahdi militia.

The delay will also give Maliki time to find out what his President has agreed to in talks with Iran's Ahmadinejad. President Talibani keeps trying to garner more power and prestige to his office, despite that office being supposedly just a figurehead.