Just after the Bush administration prematurely announced a new occupation agreement with the Iraqi government, which included the movement of US troops out of some Iraqi cities, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki this week insisted again that any new agreement must include a timetable for withdrawal.
Al-Maliki told reporters that there was an agreement on "full sovereignty" for his country and an "agreement between the two sides that there will not be any foreign soldiers in Iraq after 2011." According to press accounts, Al-Maliki wants no US soldiers, advisers, or special forces after that date.
The White House swiftly denied that such an agreement had been made, preferring to put forth its own position that an endless occupation was still in the cards. A White House spokesperson even hinted that Al-Maliki's comment may have scuttled the occupation agreement.
Al-Maliki, who has come under increased pressure from various political and sectarian factions in Iraq to break with the Bush administration on the issue of endless occupation, has stirred up enormous trouble for George W. Bush and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain recently.
In late July, McCain fumbled an answer to a reporter who asked about Al-Maliki's endorsement of Barack Obama's timetable plan. “I think it’s a pretty good timetable,” McCain told CNN. He later denied making the statement. No major media outlets have seriously scrutinized McCain's various and confused statements on the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, which range from staunch support to assertions favoring a 100-year long occupation to the confused one just described here.
Al-Maliki, in an interview with a German magazine last month, essentially endorsed Barack Obama's proposal to bring US troops home within 16 months of his inauguration. Al-Maliki was forced to back off that statement after a phone call from the White House, news reports stated, but other Iraqi government spokespersons, subsequent to that event, essentially reiterated the demand to end the occupation quickly.
Like a large majority Americans (close to 70 percent), the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the military occupation of their country to end. The vast majority want a timetable for withdrawal that is one year or less, according to recent media and academic public opinion polls. Most Iraqis blame the continued US military presence for political and security instability in their country.
So far, 4,148 US troops have been killed in Iraq, more than 30,000 officially listed as wounded. By most estimates, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion. Government estimates show that $10 billion is currently being spent per month by the US to finance the war.
No WMD or ties between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration's justification for the invasion and subsequent five-year-plus long occupation, have ever been found.
