Amman, Jordan ? President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki abruptly delayed their summit on Iraq strategy Wednesday, pushing off their meeting until today amid political protests in Baghdad over al-Maliki’s decision to attend and disclosure of a classified White House memorandum questioning the Iraqi leader’s competence.

Some U.S. officials appeared surprised by the postponement of the meeting, scheduled to be held with King Abdullah II of Jordan at the royal palace Wednesday evening, and al-Maliki’s decision not to attend a dinner later with the two other leaders. But they insisted that it had nothing to do with the embarrassing memo.

“Absolutely not,” said Dan Bartlett, the counselor to Bush. “No one should read too much into this.”

With Bush intending to press al-Maliki on his strategy for tamping down sectarian violence in Iraq, the publication Wednesday of the leaked memo, written by Bush’s national security adviser, revealed that some within the administration blame al-Maliki’s government for fostering some of the political tension there. Al-Maliki’s government has intervened in attacks against Shiite-controlled areas, the memo contends, while encouraging attacks on Sunni areas. And, while Bush has praised Iraq’s nascent democracy, the memo suggests that al-Maliki has tried to concentrate power in Shiite hands while purging Sunnis from a senior staff that does not “reflect the face of Iraq.”

Moreover, the memo – delivered by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley earlier this month after a visit to Baghdad – questioned al-Maliki’s competence and motives. “The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests al-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,” Hadley wrote in the Nov. 8 memo.

The disclosure of the memo, published by The New York Times on the eve of the summit, thrust the Bush administration into full-bore damage control.

“What we’ll say on the record is, the president has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki,” said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. “The administration is working with the prime minister to improve his capabilities in terms of dealing with the fundamental challenges in Iraq.”

President Bush meets with King Abdullah II of Jordan in the Throne Room of Raghadan Palace. Scheduled three-way talks with Bush, Abdullah and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were scuttled at the last minute on Wednesday.

Iraq protest

In Iraq, members of al-Maliki’s government raised their own pointed questions about the prime minister’s planned meetings with Bush. Thirty members of Iraq’s parliament and five Cabinet members loyal to the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a key faction of support for al-Maliki, said they were boycotting participation in parliament and the government to protest al-Maliki’s meeting with the U.S. president. Al-Sadr and his allies initially had threatened to quit the government and parliament if the prime minister carried through with the Amman summit. But they scaled back their protest to a mere suspension of participation, which left open the possibility that they would return to their posts.

One of the 30 lawmakers, Falih Hassan, said Bush should not meddle in Iraq’s affairs. He called the president “a criminal who killed a lot of Iraqis.”

According to a senior administration official, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, phoned Bush aboard Air Force One when it was en route to Amman to say that al-Maliki had already met with Abdullah and, because of that, they wouldn’t need a trilateral meeting.

Bartlett said that “everybody felt, well, there’s no reason for them to do a trilateral meeting beforehand, because matters had been discussed.”

Iraqi officials traveling with al-Maliki who were quoted anonymously by The Associated Press said the prime minister had been reluctant to travel to Amman in the first place, and once there, he did not want “a third party” – apparently the Jordanian king – involved in subjects specific to the U.S.-Iraqi relationship. Another Iraqi politician told AP that al-Maliki balked at Abdullah’s desire to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a core issue to be discussed.

The White House said Bush and al-Maliki still planned to meet today – a meeting certain to be “robust,” as Bartlett put it. They also planned a brief news conference.