SP4:Jul 19th, 2008 - 18:53:54

...you can bet he does!

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White House screws this one upJul 19th, 2008 - 23:24:44

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/white-house-tips-press-off-to-maliki -interview/

So it was a surprise on Saturday morning when the White House distributed an article by Reuters that offered an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama’s Iraq policy by the leader of Iraq.

“Iraq PM backs Obama troop exit plan,” the headline read over a story about an interview of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he expressed support for the senator’s plan to withdraw American combat brigades from Iraq over the next 16 months.

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” Mr. Maliki told Der Spiegel, Reuters reported. “That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Turns out it was a mistake by the White House clipping service, which had intended to distribute it internally but instead sent it to thousands signed up to receive the administration’s press releases, transcripts, statements and other documents, drawing attention to an interview that might otherwise have received less.

The timing compounded the mistake. It came a day after the White House announced that President Bush, in a significant shift, had agreed to a “general time horizon” for withdrawing American forces, though not on the strict timetable Mr. Obama favors. Mr. Maliki’s remarks suggested a position not entirely in line with President Bush’s, despite Friday’s announcement.

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al Maliki gives Obama an opportunityJul 19th, 2008 - 23:29:53

Obama has laid back from any commentary in the face of his current Mideast visit, and his own reticence to be seen as setting policy. That said, the good question to ask al-Maliki would be:

'What are you and the Iraqi Parliament doing about de-Baathification, provincial elections, jobs for the Sunni, and distribution of oil revenues? These are the MAJOR Benchmark issues, and if you really want the U.S. to let Iraq handle its own affairs, YOU need to make progress on these issues. It's not enough to train Iraqi forces, good as that progress is. Political reconciliation is the crux of it'

(We'll now adjourn for a half hour while SP4 looks all of this up ...)

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