Iraqi Rebuffs U.S. on Baghdad Wall

April 22, 2007 — -- President Bush plans to meet with the top U.S. commander in Iraq Monday morning, and then follow it with the latest of what he promises will be a series of updates on the war, in a clear effort to show progress and dampen efforts to withdraw American troops quickly.

A White House spokesman said the president plans to give the nation a "read-out" of the report he receives from Petraeus, who will also address members of Congress in a closed-door meeting this week.

The news came as U.S. commanders faced a new setback. American commanders had hoped to quell sectarian violence by separating Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad with a concrete wall. During a stop in Cairo today, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he ordered an end to the construction.

"I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," Maliki said.

The prime minister said the wall reminded him of other walls -- an apparent reference to the Berlin Wall and, more poignantly to some, the wall Israelis built to separate them from Palestinians.

President Bush is waging a new campaign to show progress in Iraq -- hoping to put time back on the clock as Congress prepares to vote on a bill that would force a withdrawal of American troops in 2008.

The president wrapped up last week with the first of what he promised would be regular progress updates on the so-called troop "surge" that aims to quell violence in Iraq.

"The first indicators are beginning to emerge -- and they show that so far, the operation is meeting expectations," Bush said during a stop in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Friday. "There are still horrific attacks in Iraq, such as the bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday -- but the direction of the fight is beginning to shift."

The progress the president speaks of is relative. It came on a day when two car bombs outside a Baghdad police station killed 13 Iraqis. In the bizarre calculus of Iraq, where suicide bombers killed 170 on Wednesday, that marks a comparatively tranquil day.

The president has focused heavily on Iraq recently -- among other things urging Congress to pass $100 billion in emergency war funding without a clause that requires the United States to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2008, as the current bill does. A House-Senate conference committee takes up the bill this week.

Most analysts expect the president to veto the bill and Congress to then pass a funding bill without a timeline. But the real battle could come over funding for next year. That begins in the fall.

"He's going to have to choose his words very carefully between now and then," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. "Too much premature cheerleading about progress or alleged progress in Iraq right now may actually make him look like a person who refuses to look at the evidence and simply wants to see victory regardless of what's happening."

Petraeus told The Washington Post he is battling two clocks -- one in Washington, where Congress is anxious to count down the time to withdrawal, and one in Baghdad, where a surge of new troops aims at easing violence over time.

"The question is," Petraeus said, "can you get a sustainable situation before one of the clocks runs out?"

The president and the Pentagon hope to speed up security improvements in Iraq before Congress loses patience and cuts off funding entirely.

"The clock is ticking," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week.