Anatomy of a Retraction: The New York Times Examines What Really Happened to Maliki's Words to Der Spiegel

Does it surprise you that the truth comes out and Mr. Maliki's disownment of statemer to the German magazine went down a lot like the way I surmised in my post below?

There was a call from the US Embassy to the Iraqi officials (but only for "clarification", of course) after which the Iraqis wanted to "clarify" their words.

But their proof has made their words a little too clear.   

Excerpt New York Times report "Comment Stings Iraqi Leader on Eve of Obama Visit":

The statement, which was distributed to media organizations by the American military early on Sunday, said Mr. Maliki’s words had been “misunderstood and mistranslated,” but it failed to cite specifics.

“Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate,” Mr. Dabbagh said Sunday by telephone. “I have the recording of the voice of Mr. Maliki. We even listened to the translation.”

But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times: “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”

He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”

 Mr. Maliki’s top political adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, declined to comment on the remarks, but spoke in general about the Iraqi position on Sunday. Part of that position, he said, comes from domestic political pressure to withdraw.

“Foreign soldiers in the middle of the most populated areas are not without their side effects,” he said. “Shouldn’t we look to an end for this unhealthy situation?”

 From earlier reports we note that our American leaders guffawed at al Maliki saying his calls for withdrawal were only because his country folk wanted us to go.  Imagine  a democratic leader feeling the need to actually do what his people want.  The Bushies will have none of that in the US!

I'm getting the feeling that the Bushies' neoStalinist tactics in Sadr City were the last straw.  The people were properly terrified, and the militants went into hiding when they realized the American air surge was quite willing to continue attacking families to get at imagined 'insurgents' hiding among them.

This was all well and good when the same kind of thing was being done to Sunnis who are not in the prime ministers's voting block, but the Sadrists are voters he needs.

Note to Bushies.  It's hard to do neo-Stalinism in a democracy.

 Still Mr. Maliki needs to tread carefully. He needs to ease the troops out slowly, to make sure the job can be done without violence returning to levels that might even threaten a prime minister's life.  But apparently that risk is one he is willing to take rather than allow troops that could cost him his position or even his country it's natural resources.

The rest of the Times report is about Obama and what he said and did while in Afghanistan. 

Also, if you didn't get the hint from Iraqi calls for a pullout by 2010 the LA Times offers an analysis that said "Iraqi schedule for withdrawal close to Obama's ".  So it had become obvious, anyway, by the end of the weekend that Obama and the Iraqi government were leaning the same direction.

tags: maliki  al maliki  barack  obama  troop withdrawal  

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