Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/president-bush-dismisses-calls-for-u-s-troop-withdrawal Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript President Bush and Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki met in Jordan, Thursday, to discuss strategies in Iraq to combat sectarian violence. President Bush said that U.S. troops would stay in Iraq as long as necessary. Two experts discuss what may come of the talks. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Today's Bush-Maliki summit and the events in Iraq, Washington and elsewhere surrounding it, all as seen by Dennis Ross, a State Department official and Middle East negotiator in the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and David Ignatius, a foreign affairs columnist for the Washington Post. He's covered the Middle East since the 1970s and has traveled to Iraq several times since the 2003 invasion.What was accomplished today at this meeting, David, in your opinion? DAVID IGNATIUS, The Washington Post: Well, the two managed to get together and, in a sense, were on the same page. The president said he wants to accelerate the transfer of authority to Iraqi forces, which is what Maliki says he wants. The president says he wants our troops to get out as soon as possible; I think he means that.And he's saying, you know, we want the same thing that the Iraqi prime minister wants. In that sense, after a period in which there was the appearance of a real disagreement between the two, they appear to be on the same page.I think beneath those statements — and at these press conferences after summits, you always get a kind of bland readout — I think that we can see that the administration is determined to go forward with changes in policy. I think that the Bush administration has been making its own review, even as the Baker-Hamilton commission has been making its review.And in the next several weeks, we're going to hear some things that will signal to us that there will be changes over the next year. JIM LEHRER: But with Maliki, Dennis? Do you agree that the president is sticking with Maliki at this point?DENNIS ROSS, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Oh, I think he's sticking with Maliki, because I think he has nobody else to bid on. JIM LEHRER: There is no option, right? DENNIS ROSS: Not for the president. I think Maliki came into this meeting, and he was feeling actually in a stronger position because of the release of the Hadley memo. JIM LEHRER: Now, explain that. Why would that make him feel stronger? DENNIS ROSS: Well, first, he adopted the position that he wouldn't meet with the president and King Abdullah the day before, which was him determining something that had been planned by the White House, obviously.Second, he was coming in — in a sense, he could go on the offensive, and the president might be on the defensive. How could you release this memo the day before this meeting, in a sense portraying him as if he's a vassal, someone that you can manipulate?So he comes in from the standpoint of being able to say, "Look, this is what I need from you. You haven't been giving it to me." And I was struck by the president in the press conference, almost seeming defensive, saying, "He's frustrated with me because we haven't been providing him the means to be able to go ahead and do the job."So I was really struck by that, and it suggested to me that in private he had actually been quite strong with the president.