WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — A classified memorandum by President Bush’s national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq and recommended that the United States take new steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader’s position.
The Nov. 8 memo was prepared for Mr. Bush and his top deputies by Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and senior aides on the staff of the National Security Council after a trip by Mr. Hadley to Baghdad.
The memo suggests that if Mr. Maliki fails to carry out a series of specified steps, it may ultimately be necessary to press him to reconfigure his parliamentary bloc, a step the United States could support by providing “monetary support to moderate groups,” and by sending thousands of additional American troops to Baghdad to make up for what the document suggests is a current shortage of Iraqi forces. (Text of the Memo)
The memo presents an unvarnished portrait of Mr. Maliki and notes that he relies for some of his political support on leaders of more extreme Shiite groups. The five-page document, classified secret, is based in part on a one-on-one meeting between Mr. Hadley and Mr. Maliki on Oct. 30.
“His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change,” the memo said of the Iraqi leader. “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.”
An administration official made a copy of the document available to a New York Times reporter seeking information on the administration’s policy review. The Times read and transcribed the memo.
A couple of items here. First, the memo was prepared by Bush's National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley--did Hadley himself, or someone within the Bush administration leak this memo? It is rather ironic how this memo had been leaked just before President Bush's meeding with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki. Which comes to my second question of why was this memo leaked? To have such a rather unflattering portrait of the Iraqi leader created by the Bush administration, and publicly leaked just before President Bush is to meet with that leader is a perfect means to sabotage the talks between Bush and al-Maliki. Did the Bush administration sanction this leak? After all, such a leak could be a perfect political scapegoat for the administration to blame the violence of Iraq on al-Maliki and pull out the U.S. troops there. But even if that is correct, then the Bush administration would have known back in October, or even earlier, that Iraq is a lost cause. And that is certainly a contradiction, since President Bush has publicly stated that Iraq is not in a state of civil war:
(CBS/AP) President Bush said Tuesday that the sectarian violence rocking Iraq is not civil war but part of an al Qaeda plot to use violence to goad Iraqi factions into repeatedly attacking each other.
"No question it's tough, no question about it," Mr. Bush said at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. "There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of the attacks by al Qaeda causing people to seek reprisal."
Mr. Bush, who travels to Jordan later in the week for a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the latest cycle of violence does not represent a new era in Iraq. The country is reeling from the deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began in March 2003.
"We've been in this phase for a while," he said.
The White House doesn't want to use the term "civil war," because it's the next category of chaos, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports. There's also a huge difference between U.S. troops engaged in a noble mission like bringing democracy to a region and being caught in another country's civil war.
And by the way, how is the Bush administration spinning this latest leak? Here's more from the Times article:
Aides to President Bush, who was attending a NATO summit today in Riga, Latvia, scrambled to put the best face on the memo.
“The president has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki,” the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters, adding that the administration “is working with the prime minister to improve his capabilities in terms of dealing with the fundamental challenges in Iraq.”
You have to marvel at the comedic incompetence of this administration. President Bush has confidence in Maliki, even though his administration is leaking memos that say that Maliki has pretty much lost control of Iraq. But it gets better here. Because now the meeting between Bush and Maliki has been postponed. According to this New York Times article, titled Bush-Maliki talks are postponed:
AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 29 —The first meeting in a scheduled two-day summit between President Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq was canceled at the last minute today, against the backdrop of threats by a radical Shiite cleric to boycott the Maliki government and the disclosure of a classified White House memo that was highly critical of Mr. Maliki.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki still intend to have breakfast together here Thursday morning, and to hold a much-anticipated joint press conference afterward.
But a joint session planned for this evening with their Jordanian host, King Abdullah II, was abruptly called off while Mr. Bush was in the air, flying to Amman from Riga, Latvia.
Mr. Bush’s counselor, Dan Bartlett, told reporters who traveled with the president that there turned out to be no need for the planned three-way session, since Mr. Maliki and King Abdullah had already met earlier in the day and Mr. Bush and King Abdullah were planning dine together privately later in the evening.
Mr. Bartlett said the cancellation had nothing to do with disclosure of the classified memo, reported in today’s issue of The New York Times. “No one should read too much into this, except for the fact that they had a good meeting,” Mr. Bartlett said, referring to Mr. Maliki and the king.
The postponement of these three-ways talks between Bush, Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah had nothing to do with the leaked White House memo trashing Maliki. Is it me, or am I getting dizzy from all this spin? And while we're at it, I'm sure that this New York Times story didn't have anything to do with the Bush-Maliki meeting:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 29 — Legislators and cabinet officials loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr said today that they had suspended their participation in the Iraqi government because Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had ignored their request to cancel his meeting with President Bush in Jordan.
The departure of the Sadr followers from the halls of power here — 30 parliamentarians 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.
It is unclear what immediate effect Mr. Sadr’s boycott will have on Mr. Maliki and the government. At the urging of senior ayatollahs, the religious Shiite bloc that dominates the government is expected to stay together despite the walkout, though the balance of power within it would change drastically if Mr. Sadr were to prolong his boycott. An extended absence by Mr. Sadr could ignite a bitter struggle for leadership among the top Shiite politicians.
Bahaa al-Aaraji, a leader of the Sadr legislators, said the Sadr organization had two conditions for rejoining the government: That Mr. Maliki wrest more control of the Iraqi security forces from the Americans and increase their number, and that the government provide more electricity, gas and other basic services to the people.
That places more pressure on Mr. Maliki to win concessions on the security issue from President Bush at their planned meeting in Amman, which was postponed until Thursday. Command of the Iraqi forces is a point of conflict between Mr. Maliki and the Americans. Mr. Maliki, who flew into Jordan on Wednesday, has said the Americans need to cede more operational control to the Iraqis.
So what is the bottom line on all this mess? Iraq is a complete disaster! Nothing will come from these postponed talks between Bush and Maliki, except for some press photo ops and a few useless quotations to be spun around the mainstream media's heads. Maliki is a puppet--a figurehead--in a castrated Iraqi government that is unable to quell the sectarian violence of this civil war that is raging in Iraq. President Bush has also become something of a figurehead within the U.S. government, since it was the president himself who made the case for going to war with Iraq, for continually advocating the "stay the course" policy in Iraq--even when Iraq was breaking apart in a civil war--and President Bush is even now still refusing to believe that his administration has lost this war in Iraq. The Bush administration's case for continuing the war in Iraq has also been shattered by the Republican's loss of control of Congress to the Democrats. Iraq is a shattered state--divided into three regions defined by ethnicity. The real question that the Bush administration should be debating is when do we start pulling the troops out of Iraq?
It is a question that the president still refuses to accept.
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