When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is talking, US officials assume “no” doesn’t really mean no.
That was the message today when Admiral Michael Mullen addressed reporters in Baghdad, warning that Iraq had to start opening discussions about the terms of the continued US presence in the “next few weeks.”
Mullen’s comments came less than 24 hours after a meeting with Prime Minister Maliki, where the Iraqi ruler completely ruled out the prospect of US troops staying past December. Maliki told Mullen he was confident the military was ready to operate without US assistance.
For Maliki the decision is both a political and practical one. The US presence remains unpopular with his constituency, but dramatically moreso with his partners led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has threatened armed revolt if US troops remain in 2012.
US officials say they are keen on keeping 10,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested this could come in the form of a permanent military base deal. Given the strength of the Sadrist faction, however, many fear that the unrest those 10,000 troops would cause will be far worse than any benefit they might provide in the form of training.
"Robert Gates suggested this could come in the form of a permanent military base deal."
Wow, no way! The US government wants another military base? I never woulda guessed that.
check?……………Mate??????
You know what would be funny as hell? If Iraq were to take the US govt. to international court to get them evicted! In fact if Japan were to do that as well. Then when the US refused to go at least the mask would be off and it would be obvious even to the Sean Hannity's of the world, that we are occuping other countries against their will. What really needs to happen is America needs to lose the "good guy" label.
The US has already lost the "good guy" label throughout much of the world.
How is this any different from the Nazi occupation of France?
We have to presume that Mullen, the Generals, and the State Department are trying to save face with this attempt to bully the Iraqis into allowing the US to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq. For what purpose? Training? All the US representatives in Iraq have to know they hate our guts and the only reason any US companies would stay there would be to continue to gouge the US taxpayers. The claim/lie was that those 50,000 troops that are still there were for training. The Iraqis are more than willing to do their own training and suffer any losses from possible civil war rather than allow the US to stay. I'm certain they will also get around to sending a letter to Hillary that demands the US embassy be closed or stripped of it's deliberately bloated staffing along with the propsed thousands of private security guards.