NYT: Iraqi government doesn't want more US troops

[RedEarth]

January 11, 2007
Promising Troops Where They Aren’t Really Wanted
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Jan. 10 — As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them.

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not publicly opposed the American troop increase, but aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal. They fear that an increased American troop presence, particularly in Baghdad, will be accompanied by a more assertive American role that will conflict with the Shiite government’s haste to cut back on American authority and run the war the way it wants. American troops, Shiite leaders say, should stay out of Shiite neighborhoods and focus on fighting Sunni insurgents.

“The government believes there is no need for extra troops from the American side,” Haidar al-Abadi, a Parliament member and close associate of Mr. Maliki, said Wednesday. “The existing troops can do the job.”

It is an opinion that is broadly held among a Shiite political elite that is increasingly impatient, after nearly two years heading the government here, to exercise power without the constraining supervision of the United States. As a long-oppressed majority, the Shiites have a deep-seated fear that the power they won at the polls, after centuries of subjugation by the Sunni minority, will be progressively whittled away as the Americans seek deals with the Sunnis that will help bring American troops home.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?ei=5090&en=62afff5c9671e2d2&ex=1326171600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[acmavm]

1. Maliki and the boys want to be able to kill all the Sunnis they

can hunt down. But with the Saudis (and now Jordanians) nagging about this, they're afraid that bush** and Co. might think that they should knock it off.

[sharp_stick]

2. Maliki wants to protect his buddy

Sadr is the guy running that shithole of a country and Maliki is afraid that shrub means to cut him off. Shrub and his cronies in Iraq haven't done anything about Sadr in the past and I really doubt they will do anything now beyond paying lip service to the need to be fair to both Shia and Sunni Iraqis.

[Future Principal]

3. Then that should solve it. Iraqi government is ready to stand up, right, Chimp?

Isn't it time for us to stand down then?

[angstlessk]

4. Iraqi government does not want it, the American people do not want it..

..that makes it official...it is boosh and barney all by their lonesome (though I question barney's commitment the surge)

edit: there/their

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Barney doesn't want to surge.

He just wants to hump your leg.

[asthmaticeog]

6. It was almost inevitable...

...that "we" would end up picking sides in this very, very old and probably irreconcilable ethno/religious conflict.

This is well and truly fubar.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. There's you answer

the Iraqis and the American people have spoken?

[montanto]

8. didn't *

say that he had talked to the Iraqis and that this is what they wanted? Oh, thats right, he said that he had spoken to congress too, and considered the ISG findings too, and talked to the people too.

(packing bags)

[liberal N proud]

9. Why would bu$h listen to the Iraqi's?

He doesn't listen to the Americans, He doesn't listen to the Generals and he doesn't listen to the experts.

This war is his little video game and Iraq and the soldiers are all stuck in it while we get to put the quarters in the slot.

[Roland99]

10. American troops...should stay out of Shiite neighborhoods. Yeah...only Sunnis are killing people.

:eyes:

[Maryland Liberal]

11. Your Homework assignment...

I work with a guy who recently came back from IRAQ. I asked him "Who is winning the war?" His reply was "We are killing alot more of them then they are of us". I then asked him "Why don't we just sit in our bases and let the IRAQies fight it out amongst themselves?" His reply was "Presence" - A military concept which which I am not too familiar with. I would be intrested to hear from other DUers who have talked with those who recently came back from IRAQ.

[beltanefauve]

13. Can't share an Iraq vet story,

but I've heard the word, "presence" used by two fundies I've talked to. No, it's not about the oil, but we're there to establish a "presence", and it says so in the Bible.:eyes:

[PATRICK]

12. A new debacle

Besides the tired old repeats with new casualties injected the really disastrous elements would be in stationing more sitting ducks in police stations that themselves could be hostile. At this point, if the plan is serious- and we have to hope for the soldiers' sake it is not- more soldiers will be placed in completely untenable positions and conducting house to house operations that will have to be extremely disastrous by any rule of logic and reality.

Already, one of the twofer teasers that makes George II so pleased is the bombing of an embassy- an embassy!- in kurdish territory where he thought he could best get away with it. This has antagonized everyone imaginable, Kurdish allies, Turks, on down the line to every nation that has an embassy anywhere. Wow, a blatant intro to the Iranian strike still on the agenda plus a blow against....against insurgent supporters? The Shiites who are not our puppets for example? I guess in Bush world everyone is supposed to be in equal parts happy and intimidated by this aggressive brilliance- one for which our vacuous press still plays dumb and low key.

So we blunder on in Iraq and still play this "secret" tango with Israel about the "necessary" bloodshed that must be forced upon Iran no matter what. Lurching stumbling dying, a Charge of the Dark Brigade with the commanders far behind the lines trying to avoid the day when they will be personally held to account, postponing the ultimate reckoning of failure by ensuring the whole sorry massacre is carried out.

And we have the most empty crown, the most idiotic uncharismatic fraud pushing the mythic authority envelope like an unpaid bill back on us with lame excuses, bald bold lies and pitiful rhetoric.

The flags and pompoms held by the MSM peanut galleries hang limp. They whistle quietly in the wind. And the soldiers keep advancing into the jaws of death.

[dubeskin]

14. Interesting, now the War has changed

Instead of War in Iraq, it's War AGAINST Iraq. I mean really, did any of the countries we've invaded before want us to invade? No, but we just barged right in. So, instead of "protecting" them, it seems we are fighting them now. The only logical reason Bush wants a surge is so that he can quickly construct walls around his oil derricks and run away.