Go Back to Iraq or Attend a Chamber of Commerce Function? Tough Call.

Check your calendars! We got an e-mail Wednesday evening from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker will not, repeat, will not, be able to make it to the Chamber on Monday.

"Dear Registrants," the e-mail said, "We received word late today that" Petraeus and Crocker "will be returning to Iraq earlier than previously scheduled. As many of you know, this past week has seen renewed fighting between Coalition Forces and Shiite militias in Baghdad's Sadr City.

"As a result of these events," both "must return to Iraq late this week to address the evolving security situation," and Monday's "International Forum Briefing on the role of American Business in Iraq at the Chamber of Commerce is postponed."

A Loop Agent asked Crocker about this when the ambassador stopped yesterday afternoon at The Washington Post. "We both had the intention of staying on for a few extra days on what you would call leave," Crocker said. "With everything that's going on . . . this isn't a time to be off station, frankly, for personal reasons."

Other no-shows would have been Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who, according to e-mail from the State Department to the Chamber, will be tied up in a Cabinet meeting.

But this is no reason for members to toss out those plans for a Burger King in Basra. "We will update our membership on when this event will be rescheduled," our e-mail said.

Most-Adorable-Nation Status

The Chamber's hasty move was clearly an overreaction. Organizers surely could have gotten a high-profile speaker later that day. President Bush, for example, seems to have some time on his hands these days. He spent Wednesday evening hanging with the prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker.

Asked about this yesterday, White House spokesman Dana Perino said: "They did have a private meeting last night in the residence, but since it's private I'll leave it that way. But they had just seen each other at the NATO conference, and since Prime Minister Juncker was coming to Washington this week for the IMF and the World Bank meetings, he invited him over. So they met in the Yellow Oval (a room in the residential part of the White House), and also spent a little time on the Truman Balcony. But I'm not going to talk about specifics."

Luxembourg, not a member of the coalition of the willing, is 45 square miles smaller than Rhode Island, with a population 100,000 below the District's.

Power Lunch Alert!

Spotted at lunch Wednesday at the pricey D.C. restaurant Il Mulino: Mark Penn, Burson-Marsteller chief and former chief strategist and major player in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.

His luncheon companion? None other than Karen P. Hughes, longtime Bush aide, White House counselor and State Department public diplomacy czar. We're told mutual friends arranged this as a "get-to-know-you lunch" while she was in town for a State Department public diplomacy award.

But what would the two PR wizards have discussed? Obviously not politics. Maybe Hughes, who surely would have a number of potential Mideast clients -- despite having had some rocky days over there -- would come work for Penn's firm? Maybe a little chit-chat over their favorite PR strategies? NAFTA?