ROSTOCK, Germany - Once a matter of bitter disputes, the Iraq war is strangely missing from this summit of world powers. A new generation of leaders has turned attention to other problems - from global warming to poverty in Africa - while the war grinds into its fifth year and the U.S. death toll climbs to 3,500.

Not a single word about Iraq was publicly spoken when President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, twin architects of the war, held a farewell photo opportunity Thursday in nearby Heiligendamm, Germany.

Blair and Bush both are political casualties of the war, battered down in opinion polls as their once-optimistic promises about freeing Iraq of violence proved empty.

"This is the last meeting I will have had with him as prime minister," Bush said, alongside Blair. "It's a nostalgic moment for me; I'm sorry it's come to be, but that's what happens in life. We'll move on."

Indeed, Blair will step from the world stage on June 27 but Bush has nearly 600 days remaining in office. Iraq will haunt him with bloodshed and frustrations until he leaves. The war already has cost Republicans control of Congress and tarnished the president's legacy.

A new cast of leaders has turned the page from contentious arguments over Iraq, calling a truce on both sides of the Atlantic.

"They're not happy about (Iraq,)", said Charles Kupchan, former director of European affairs for the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and now head of Europe studies for the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

"They're not going to touch it with a 10-foot pole in terms of doing anything to help stabilize the country," Kupchan said. "But I think the relationship has moved past the acrimony that the war has caused."

This is Bush's first summit without Jacques Chirac as president of France. He was Bush's chief tormentor on Iraq and brought along then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder into an alliance of unrelenting opposition against the U.S. on the war.

It was a politically convenient stand for Chirac and Schroeder since the war is highly unpopular in Europe. The White House seethed in anger at the two leaders, and Washington's relations with Paris and Berlin were heavily strained.

The French leader once savaged Eastern European nations that backed Bush on Iraq. "They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet," Chirac had said. Schroeder rode to re-election in 2002 largely on his promise not to send troops to an Iraq "adventure."

In office less than a month, Nicolas Sarkozy took his place at the summit table as a French president friendly to the United States. While he does not fall in lockstep with U.S. policies, he has earned the label "Sarko the American" from some in France.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the summit host this year, also has made it her goal to strengthen relations with the United States. With Blair, Bush's best ally, leaving, Merkel - at her second Group of 8 summit - is seen as Bush's best friend in Europe.

The absence of tensions over Iraq makes it a more comfortable summit for Bush.

"There is nothing we can tell those guys about Iraq," said Simon Serfaty, director of European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. That's because Bush has put off any assessment of the war until he receives an update on security operations in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Baghdad.

At the same time, Bush can't count on summit nations for help in Iraq.

"No one is going to do more than they are doing now, however little it might be," Serfaty said. "This is essentially a competition now in accelerated withdrawal, competitive withdrawals for all of the members of the coalition outside possibly the U.S."

- Editors Note: Terence Hunt has covered the White House for The Associated Press since 1981.