Bush and Iraqi president put off meeting until Thursday

AMMAN - U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki postponed for a day their crisis talks on Iraq, but officials played down any link between the schedule change and a memo suggesting tensions between the two leaders.

A U.S. official denied the cancellation of a dinner on Wednesday in the Jordanian capital Amman was a snub by Maliki in response to a New York Times story that carried a leaked White House report criticising the Iraqi leader.

"It was going to be more of a social meeting anyway," White House counsellor Dan Bartlett told reporters after Bush arrived in Amman, referring to the three-way dinner that would have included Jordan's King Abdullah.

"The president and prime minister Maliki will have a very robust and lengthy dialogue tomorrow morning."

Bush did have dinner with King Abdullah, who this week said "something dramatic" must come from the talks on Iraq. Jordanian officials said the cancellation was at their request so Bush and Abdullah could focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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

The Iraqi leader's standing had also been eroded by 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 Maliki's coalition if the premier met the U.S. president.

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

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 U.S. troops.

The crisis summit with Maliki had been hastily arranged and Bush also changed his schedule to see the Iraqi leader.

While in Latvia, Bush vowed not to pull troops out "before the mission is complete".

On Wednesday, General Peter Pace, chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed Bush in playing down growing signs that Iraq is already engulfed in civil war and instead accused al Qaeda of fomenting sectarian bloodshed.

That view is not shared by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said on Wednesday Iraq had descended into civil war and urged world leaders to accept that "reality".

Ahmadinejad urges Americans to reject 'blind support' for IsraelIn an open letter presented on Wednesday, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged the American people to demand the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq and reject what he called the U.S. government's "blind support" for Israel and its "illegal and immoral" actions in fighting terrorism.

In Wednesday's letter to "Noble Americans," distributed by Iran's United Nations Mission, Ahmadinejad said, "We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people" and accused U.S. President George Bush's administration of disregarding public opinion by remaining "in the forefront of supporting the trampling of the rights of the Palestinian people."

"What has blind support for the Zionists by the U.S. administration brought for the American people?," Ahmadinejad asked. "It is regrettable that for the U.S. administration, the interests of these occupiers supersedes the interests of the American people and of the other nations of the world."

He urged Americans to support the right of the Palestinians to live in their own homeland.

In reference to American presence in Iraq, Ahmadinejad asked, "Now that Iraq has a constitution and an independent assembly and government, would it not be more beneficial to bring the U.S. officers and soldiers home, and to spend the astronomical U.S. military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of the American people?"

Iraq's president said Wednesday he had reached a security agreement with Iran, which the U.S. accuses of fueling the chaos in the war-torn country. Iran's president called on countries to stop backing "terrorists" in Iraq and for the Americans to withdraw.

Tehran is believed to back some of the Shiite militias blamed in the vicious sectarian killings that have thrown the country into chaos. The U.S. has said the Iraqi government should press Iran to stop interfering in its affairs in a bid to calm the violence.

Presidents Jalal Talabani of Iraq held talks with Ahmadinejad on Wednesday hours before Bush was due to meet with the Iraqi prime minister in Jordan in talks aimed at finding a solution to Iraq's spiraling bloodshed.

Talabani gave no details on the security agreement with Iran, and Ahmadinejad made no mention of any deal at a joint press conference in Tehran.

"We discussed in the fields of security, economy, oil and industry. Our agreement was complete," Talabani told reporters. "This visit was 100 percent successful. Its result will appear soon."

It was not clear if Talabani's comments reflected an agreement by Tehran to try to rein in Shiite militias. Most of the militias are run by political parties that are a powerful part of the coalition government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He has resisted U.S. pressure to crack down on the militias.

Ahmadinejad repeated his calls for the United States to withdraw its forces from Iraq.

"I advise you to leave Iraq," he said, addressing the Americans. "Based on a timetable, transfer the responsibilities to Iraqi government. This will agree to your interests, too."

He urged countries to stop backing militants in Iraq, saying, "supporting terrorists is the ugliest act that they can do." He did not specify which countries he was referring to.

Ahmadinejad said "extremists should be dismissed [from the Iraqi government] no matter to which group and ethnicity they belong to. This is the only way to salvation."

"Enemies of Iraq are trying to create differences and extend hostility among the Iraqi people," he said.

The United States accuses Iran and its ally Syria of stirring up violence in Iraq. Tehran denies this, saying it seeks calm in its neighbor and that an end to the bloodshed can only come when U.S. forces withdraw.

Al-Maliki and Talabani both have longtime ties with Iran. The Iraqi president has been in Iran the past three days, meeting Ahmadinejad and the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Talabani and Ahmadinejad attended a ceremony for the signing of two memorandums of understanding for cooperation in education and industry.

Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran "will stand by its Iraqi brothers," saying "no one can divide nations of Iran and Iraq."