Maliki, Bush meet in Amman

US President George W. Bush arrived in Jordan yesterday for crisis talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose own position has been eroded by blunt White House criticism and the loss of a key Shi'ite ally.

Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the Mehdi Army militia, carried out his threat to boycott parliament and Mr Maliki's coalition if the premier met the US president.

Mr Sadr's faction, which helped elect Mr Maliki to his post, denounced his visit to see Mr Bush as "a provocation to the Iraqi people". It was not clear how long the boycott would last.

Mr Maliki's trip was already clouded by a leaked White House memo questioning his ability to rescue Iraq from bloody turmoil that claims scores of lives daily, including over 200 killed in a bomb and mortar attack on Mr Sadr's Baghdad stronghold last week.

President Bush, who arrived in Amman after attending a Nato summit in Latvia, is himself under growing pressure to change course to prevent Iraq dissolving in a maelstrom of sectarian strife and to secure an honourable exit for 140,000 US troops.

While in Latvia, Mr Bush blamed al Qaeda for the violence and vowed not to pull troops out "before the mission is complete". He denied Iraq had already plunged into civil war.

US misgivings about Mr Maliki's leadership surfaced in a sometimes scathing memo written by national security adviser Stephen Hadley and published by the New York Times.

Mr Hadley told Mr Bush in the November 8 document that Mr Maliki needed political help and a possible shake-up of his seven-month-old national unity government of hostile factions. The document describes the Iraqi leader as a man who "wanted to be strong but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so", and questions whether he shares Washington's vision for Iraq.

"If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shi'ite hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power?" the memo asks.

The White House said yesterday it had confidence in Mr Maliki and wanted to strengthen his position.

Mr Bush and Mr Maliki are meeting for a dinner hosted by King Abdullah and for a working breakfast today.

The meetings are expected to be a give-and-take on how to improve the situation, and "not the president dictating terms," a US official said. A bold announcement was not expected.

Mr Maliki and Mr Bush said they would discuss transferring more control to Iraqi security forces and the role other countries in the region could play to stem bloodshed and chaos in Iraq.

Mr Bush has rejected direct US talks with Iran over helping to stabilise Iraq, saying Tehran must first stop nuclear fuel enrichment. But he said it was up to Baghdad to decide on its relations with neighbouring Iran and Syria, both US foes.

Mr Maliki held preliminary talks with Jordan's King Abdullah, who, like other Sunni Arab leaders, fears rising Iranian influence in Iraq and the region, especially after the Lebanon war between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas.

The king told the BBC earlier that Iraqi leaders must prevent Iraq being destroyed "in a whirlpool of violence".

In another sign of regional worry, a security adviser to the Saudi government predicted that Riyadh would use money, weapons or its oil power to prevent Shi'ite militias from "massacring Sunnis" once the US began pulling out of Iraq.