In his briefing today, White House spokesperson, Tony Snow, wanted to make two points about Iraq: 1) that Iraq is a functioning democracy; 2) he denied that Bush is planning to sack the prime minister of Iraq after 2 months. He said that the president called Maliki today to assure him that he will not fire him. In an interview on Fox News, Bush repeated the same thing but added that Maliki is expected to do what he is told of course.