(Reuters) Bush plan for more troops originated with Maliki

[Eugene]

Bush plan for more troops originated with Maliki
By Susan Cornwell
Reuters

Jan 8, 2007 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's new plan for Iraq
had its genesis in proposal from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who pledged more
Iraqi efforts to bolster security if the United States would send more troops, a
Republican senator said on Monday.

Sen. Gordon Smith, who in December criticized the war in a Senate floor speech,
said Bush indicated in a Monday meeting with a group of Republican senators and top
administration officials that he was preparing to send roughly 20,000 more U.S.
troops to Iraq.

-snip-

The Iraqi commitments from Maliki included providing more military divisions, promising
to use certain tactics without regard to religious sects, and a promise not to shield
Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Smith said.

-snip-

"He (Bush) went at great length to say how impressed he was that Prime Minister
Maliki would come to them with a plan as to what was needed to restore the political
processes of Iraq," Smith said. Bush thought that "because this was their (the Iraqis')
proposal, they would come through," Smith said.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2780043

If George Bush believes Maliki's promises, he's even dumber than I thought.

[NoodleBoy]

1. sounded more like John Kerry's Iraq plan-- 20,000 more troops, then seeing what happens

and deciding what to do from there.

[JanusAscending]

7. What the hell are you talking about??

Show me that Kerry plan in black and white please!

[NoodleBoy]

8. it's hard to find now through all the flotsom, but here's something close:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/09/kerry.iraq/

Kerry said his goal would be to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq within six months of taking office, but he said he would put more troops into the country "if the commanders ask for it."

So I got the quote wrong. Sorry. But at the time, it was likely he would increase troops levels-- things have changed since then.

[JanusAscending]

9. That was then, this is now!

You realize that if more troops were sent in then, and if Kerry had been running things then, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now! You made it sound like this was his position in the "present tense"!! You are completely wrong in this assertion. Kerry has been saying since then, it's too late for additional troops, that the war can't be won militarily, and that we should have been withdrawing our troops LONG before now !! He knew then that the commanders were asking for more troops, but Rummy wasn't going along, and that shrub was full of shit! Please don't make statements that you consider "FACT" without the ability to back it up. Too many "misquotes" are perhaps the reason that we have a "pResident" in the WH now!!

[NoodleBoy]

10. dude, settle down

and I guess you decided to "misread" where I said "things have changed since then," and I also nowhere said that that was my position.

[Hepburn]

2. So....let me get this, OK?

The Iraqis are now running US policy in regard to their country?

<shaking head>

[MADem]

3. Well, we know who pulls al-Maliki's strings.

That would be ole Muqtada al-Sadr. Thus, Bush is taking orders from a fat guy in a black turban, who leads a killer militia, the unelected head of the Dawa Party. Nice....

Of course, if the extra troops are keeping order in Baghdad, then the Baghdad police, which are HEAVILY infiltrated by al-Sadr's al-Mahdi brigade, would be able to take some time off and do a little Sunni killing, the better to consolidate Muqtada's power.

What a load of horseshit, all of it...

[aquart]

4. Yup, that sounds about right.

Georgie: Always a puppet, never a puppetmaster.

[pinto]

5. Who's using whom in this scenario? Geez. These folks have raised

unaccountability to a (sleazy) art form.

[jefferson_dem]

6. So it's "The McCain - Maliki Doctrine"

McCain - Maliki, a winning ticket ... for Iraq...

[Imagevision]

11. Malaki? -- Malaki is living on borrowed time