AMMAN (Reuters) - President Bush arrived in Jordan on Wednesday for crisis talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki but a dinner involving the two leaders was canceled at the last moment.
A U.S. official denied the cancellation was a snub by Maliki in response to a New York Times report that carried a leaked White House report criticizing the Iraqi leader.
"It was going to be more of a social meeting anyway," White House counselor Dan Bartlett told reporters traveling with Bush, referring to the dinner that would have also included Jordan's King Abdullah.
"The president and prime minister Maliki will have a very robust and lengthy dialogue tomorrow morning."
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 honorable 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 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.
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."
U.S. misgivings about Maliki's leadership became known when the sometimes scathing memo by national security adviser Stephen Hadley was published by the New York Times.
Hadley told Bush in the November 8 document that Maliki needed political help and a possible shake-up of his seven-month-old national unity government of hostile factions.
It 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 on Wednesday it had confidence in Maliki and wanted to strengthen his position.
NO BOLD MOVE
Thursday's meetings are expected to be a give-and-take on how to improve the situation, and "not the president dictating terms," a U.S. official said. A bold announcement is not expected.
Maliki and 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.
Bush has rejected direct U.S. talks with Iran over helping to stabilize Iraq, saying Tehran must first stop nuclear fuel enrichment. But he said it was up to Baghdad to decide on its relations with neighboring Iran and Syria, both U.S. foes.
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."
Bush, under pressure to change course in Iraq after his Republican party lost control of Congress in November elections, is to receive recommendations next month from a bipartisan panel headed by former secretary of state James Baker.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Amman and Alastair Macdonald and Aseel Kami in Baghdad)