text: UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki kept a polite distance Saturday as they attended a group meeting and avoided discussion of a deadly Baghdad shootout involving guards from a U.S. company protecting American diplomats.
  The two greeted each other before the meeting, but in a brief exchange of pleasantries, the issue of the shootout didn’t come up, deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
  With tensions soaring over the Sept. 16 incident, Rice and al-Maliki chose not to speak about it at a United Nations gathering at which they were among senior diplomats and officials from Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, weighing future assistance to Iraq.