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Bush meets Maliki to discuss Iraq
a where he was attending a NATO summit.
The meeting follows comments by Bush that he does not support calls for US talks with Iran or for withdrawing US troops from Iraq. His goal is for Iraqis to take charge of their country before US troops pull out, he said.
Ahead of the meeting he resisted calling the bloodshed a civil war, and held to his view that the fight in Iraq was part of a broader struggle between democracy and extremism across the Middle East.
"We'll continue to be flexible, and we'll make the changes necessary to succeed," he said. "But there's one thing I'm not going to do: I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."