iraqi pm disputes report on withdrawal plan.

[redwing]

(CNN) -- A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.

Nuri al-Maliki told Der Spiegel that he favors a "limited" tenure for coalition troops in Iraq.

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months," he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday.

"That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes," he said.

But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.

read complete article here:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/19/almaliki.obama/

[nebula]

Prayers

[Rick-Parker]

We all want to pull out of Iraq as quickly as possible. The issue for a lot of us is the need to stay long enough to defeat the insurgency, drive Al Qaeda into Afghanistan and ensure that Iran is not the spoiler in Iraq. We have lost over 4,000 brave men and women in this fight, but we will loose a lot more than that if we pull out prematurely and have to go back in a year. We all know (those with a brain anyway) that the insurgents are just lying low and allowing stability in the hopes that we will be fooled into a false sense of security and withdraw our troops. Then all heck will break loose. I pray for the leadership of America and Iraq.

[Elchingen]

I wonder what exactly the allied forces are accomplishing with these occupations, and what end is to be met that would signal a "victory", such that any troops could be reasonably removed?

If the "mission" is to establish a sound civilization that can support itself while resisting violent forces within it's own population, this becomes an impossible mission, one that will have US forces in Iraq indefinately.

If the "mission" is to defeat the insurgents and prop up the artificial government that the US created in the hopes of securing a strong land base, oil reserves, and a military presense that will ensure US hegemony over the region, likewise this will require an extremely long and open-ended committment that borders on a literal annexation of Iraq on the lines of Puerto Rico, Guam, and a few others that would "unofficially" qualify--Phillipines, Haiti, Panama, etc.

If the "mission" is to cap an initially successful military campaign with a well-meaning delivery of the complete government apparatus into the hands of Iraqis in as unconditional a form as possible, this could have been done yesterday.

I ask--why so much money, so much military might, so much waste, and so much time for an objective that, as far as I can see, has never been clearly defined?

The sad truth is that profiteers and mercenaries are getting the hard-earned tawxes of all Americans to line their own pockets, a cynical exhibition of captalism in it's ugliest form whereby two nations of people are made to suffer for the gratifications of an exclusive class of power-mongers--the oil people, the arms people, and the sinister likes of Haliburton and others who drain their own nation for sheer profit.

It is a crime and a sin.

[Rick-Parker]

Oh goody. Another one.

[JustinM]

Well, this is embarassing.