AFP: Iraqi PM delivers belated support for new US strategy

[Eugene]

Iraqi PM delivers belated support for new US strategy

by Jennie Matthew

Sat Jan 13, 7:13 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has delivered a lukewarm
endorsement of a new US policy to rescue his country from civil war as Baghdad
braced nervously for stepped-up security operations.

A curt statement from his office, issued three days after US President George W.
Bush unveiled the plan on television, amounted to Maliki's first public comment
on the strategy with the premier yet to speak in person.

"The strategic plan announced by US President George W. Bush represents the
common vision and mutual understanding between the Iraqi government and the US
administration," his office said quoting Maliki Saturday.

"It is supportive of the Iraqi government's strategy to acquire command and control,
as is clear in the Baghdad security plan, which will be commanded by Iraqis with
support of multinational forces."

-snip-

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070113/ts_afp/iraq_070113121044

Associated Press
Iraqi PM, Bush Share 'Common Vision'
By SAMEER N. YACOUB 01.13.07, 7:55 AM ET

The Iraqi prime minister's office on Saturday expressed support for President Bush's
new war strategy but stressed the government would maintain control over military
action in Baghdad.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/01/13/ap3326618.html

[Missy M]

1. I guess he was afraid his arm was going to break from....

the twisting.

[xultar]

2. BUHWAWAWA!

[rodeodance]

3. says here that another jounalist was killed.

....The Americans will operate alongside 30,000 Iraqi police and the promised arrival of 20,000 Iraqi soldiers, saddled with concerns they are too weak to fight alone and that the police are widely infiltrated by militiamen.

The ethnically mixed northern oil hub of Kirkuk, for which the constitution envisages a referendum on whether to join Kurdistan, was rocked by the shooting of two contractors and the bombing of a Shiite mosque under construction.

In the volatile sectarian city of Samarra, a Sunni prayer leader and member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Yunis Wuhaib, was assassinated outside his home in the southern Sikak neighbourhood, police Captain Hashim Ahmed said.

Overnight, gunmen killed an Iraqi reporter outside his home in Mosul, the fifth journalist to be killed in the city in two months and confirming Iraq's status as the world's most dangerous assignment.

A cornerstone of the new US strategy is upping pressure on Iraq's neighbours Iran and Syria -- which Washington accuses of fomenting unrest -- and tougher action to deal with militias that Maliki's government has not tackled head on.

[Tempest]

4. Bush said the plan was Maliki's

Looks like Bush was caught in another lie.