Iraqi officials endorse Obama timeline — again

July 21, 2008

Ali al-Dabbagh, the spokesperson for the Maliki government in Iraq, has had an interesting couple of days. After Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki endorsed Barack Obama’s withdrawal policy, it was Dabbagh who was forced to argue that the quotes attributed to Maliki were “not accurate,” even though they were entirely accurate.

The back-and-forth nature of the discussion led some to an awkward dynamic: the Iraqi government supports a U.S. withdrawal, but the Bush administration has explained to Iraqi officials that they’re not supposed to support a U.S. withdrawal.

This morning, to help resolve any ambiguities, Dabbagh endorsed Obama’s timetable, too.

Iraq’s government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010.

Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day.

The timeframe is similar to Obama’s proposal to pull back combat troops within 16 months. The Iraqi government has been trying to clarify its position on a possible troop withdrawal since al-Maliki was quoted in a German magazine last week saying he supported Obama’s timetable.

Now, the AP report didn’t include any actual quotes, but if the article is accurate, it’s going to make matters that much more difficult for Bush and McCain.

As Spencer Ackerman put it, “There’s nowhere left for McCain to go here. Either he endorses a timetable for withdrawal, which he has consistently said would be a disaster, and cedes his only big issue to Obama — and more importantly, concedes that Obama’s judgment is sound — or he deliberately ignores the concerted, expressed wishes of the Iraqi government in order to prolong an unpopular war.”

Update: Chris Hayes had a classic line on this story: “What’s truly amazing about this turn of events is that it more and more looks like the Prime Minister of Iraq is going to help engineer regime change back in the U.S.”

For its part, the McCain campaign’s efforts are getting increasingly dishonest.

For the first time, the McCain campaign is trying to dismiss Maliki’s endorsement of Obama’s troop-withdrawal timeline by questioning the translation — even though a published report in the New York Times convincingly argues that the translation was accurate.

In a conference called just now with reporters, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann responded to a question about Malik’s comments by citing “the reaction from the Iraqi government, which made it clear that there were apparently some translation problems in the quote, that’s not the position of the prime minister.”

“I certainly can’t believe that the Obama campaign would take a quote that’s already been clarified out of context, and try to hang their Iraq policy on that,” Scheunemann later added.

I sometimes wonder how Scheunemann can take any pride in what he does for a living. In this case, none of this is even remotely accurate — there were no “translation problems”; the comments did reflect the position of the prime minister; and no one is taking anything out of context.

And in case there were any doubts, we have the spokesperson for the Maliki government reiterating the same position again this morning.

I was curious over the weekend how the McCain gang would spin this. I expected some level of creativity, but I didn’t expect blatant lying. The NYT obtained the audio and did its own transcription — and wouldn’t you know it, the second transcript was just like the first. Scheunemann surely knows this, but has decided to lie anyway.

Who knows; maybe this will work. Maybe the voting public isn’t paying particularly close attention, and McCain and his campaign can deceive just enough to fool enough people to win in November.

But if reality has any meaning at all, the past several days have been an abject disaster for McCain. It’s one thing to hit a rough patch, it’s another to have your signature issue taken away from you.

“But if reality has any meaning at all, the past several days have been an abject disaster for McCain. It’s one thing to hit a rough patch, it’s another to have your signature issue be taken away from you.”

this will only be true if the media, you know, actually starts reporting this………

  • It’s all about perception and propaganda, not truth and accuracy. Whoever’s better at the former doesn’t have to worry about the latter.

  • “But if reality has any meaning at all..

    Yeah, and if the queen had balls, she’d be the king, but we know that reality is for suckers and Democrats. Steve, you keep pronouncing one thing after the other the final nail in McCain’s coffin and yet these things pass like clouds on a summer day. They leave no impression on the MSM or on the electorate. I don’t know what to do about it other than keep screaming it from the rooftops, but clearly if the first 5 DOZEN policy flip flops and gaffes too numerous to count haven’t changed the press coverage, then nothing well beyond the proverbial dead girl or live boy.

  • why didn’t you think the mccain camp would lie blatantly?

    and i trust you didn’t think that the mccain camp would be challenged to make sense on this matter.

  • Slightly O/T, but over on Huffington Post, they are reporting that Senator McConfused referred to the “Iraq/Pakistan border” this morning while talking to ABC’s Diane Sawyer. McCain was attempting to belittle Senator Obama’s travels in the Middle East… McConfused needs to go back to 4th grade and repeat his Geography Class.

  • Maybe the voting public isn’t paying particularly close attention, and McCain and his campaign can deceive just enough to fool enough people to win in November.

    Thanks to the traditional media, the voting public believes that the government is preventing oil companies from building refineries and drilling more (despite millions of acres worth of unused leases). The voting public believes that providing more leases to big oil will reduce the price of gasoline. The voting public is under the impression that Obama, not McCain, is a shameless flip-flopper.

    Sadly, McCain can seems to be able to lie and pander with impunity. It won’t surprise me one bit if big media sells and the voting public buys the meme wannabe about the mistaken translation.

  • When McCain gets up to speed on connecting to the Internet, maybe he can avail himself of Google Earth. I wonder if he has a timetable for that? If he kbnows how to win wars, maybe he should first know where they are.

  • Whatever happened to “When the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down”…?

    Sure sounds like they want to stand up to me…

    Oh yeah, forgot about the permanent military bases and oil contracts.

    After all, that is why we invaded and occupied Iraq.

  • Republicans have no pride.

    Pride is what they’re full of. It’s one of the deadly sins, and in no way a virtue.

    What Republicans have none of is dignity and a sense of shame.

  • NPR seems to be working on earning its epithet of Nice Polite Republicans this morning, reporting primarily that an “Iraqi government spokesman” seems to support Obama’s position, and burying any mention of the Der Spiegel interview. Seems to me that while mentioning that Obama is meeting with Maliki today, they’d have had the perfect opportunity to mention what Maliki said to Der Spiegel, but they apparently disagree.

    I think the absurd claims by the McCain campaign aren’t actually meant to be believed, they’re intended to give editors a pretext for thinking there is a controversy about the facts, so they will downplay the story. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) will keep editors in line, minimizing the damage to McCain.

  • I was curious over the weekend how the McCain gang would spin this. I expected some level of creativity, but I didn’t expect blatant lying.

    They are still Republicans aren’t they?

  • This whole incident with Maliki has me thinking about something I think about often. I keep asking myself if the “Liberal Media” myth is really just a result of conservatives noticing before liberals that the media simply ignores all substance. I fear that I’m going to become a liberal version of my father; only getting information from sources that reinforce my world view.

    For example, on television, Keith Olbermann is the only “news” personality I consider credible these days. How is that different than my father who only trusts guys like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly? I remind myself that Keith actually limits himself to facts, but will I notice if he jumps the shark?

  • “Who knows; maybe this will work. Maybe the voting public isn’t paying particularly close attention”

    Maybe I’m alone on this, but I don’t think the voting public is paying close attention to…John McCain.

    There’s no question that he’s getting help from his “patrons” in the media, but he’s really not resonating with the public at all. His gaffes, his reversals, the blank stares and stuttering nonsence, that’s the impression the public is getting. the media can tout him all they want, but what the public sees is a sickly looking senile old man.

    There’s no avoiding this one as much as many in the upper reaches of the media would like to. Maliki on Saturday. Dabbagh today. The war in Iraq is a big issue in this election and this is a big story.

  • “Tiny carp nibble your toes in fishy pedicure”

    That’s one of the stories on MSNBC’s web page instead of the story line above. Nothing on washington Post, or NY Times, or Los Angeles Times. Nothing. So forget it. McAce’s trouncing ain’t gonna happen in the MSM Free Liberal press. Now, if McCain were to fart, a fart wold be news of great import. Time Tables for withdrawal of preemptive war troops coming from the occupied country as stated by the opposition contender for head honcho? Not so much…

  • The thing I found interesting in the NYT article, aside from the fact that they did everything in their power to bury the story without blatantly breaching their pretense at objectivity, was this little nugget way down around paragraph 14 or so:

    “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.

  • Unlike many on the progressive side, I’m not sure I see this as an automatic win for Sen. Obama. Yes, it seems like the Iraqi government endorses his thinking. But that won’t impress American voters as much as we’d like. It can in fact be spun into a negative. And yes, this does seem to remove Iraq (McCain’s signautere issue) from the table, allowing Obama to focus on domestic issues.

    But I’ve already started to see rightwingers play this as “Iraq is only ready to discuss withdrawal because of the success of The Surge(TM), and McCain was the one on the correct side of that”. It’s more nuanced in reality, of course. But in broad strokes, it looks like the surge did achieve — or at, coincided with — the political changes needed for withdrawal to be an option. This won’t be a a hard case to make. And anything that underlines McCain’s sound judgment while exposing Obama’s to criticism — especially in foreign policy — is gold for the former.

  • It is becoming increasingly impossible for the Bush/McLie cartel to keep the lid on this one—and with the general election only 15 weeks from tomorrow, it will be demonstrably hard—if not downright impossible—for them to spin their way out of this.

    Obama’s domestic plans are already putting a crimp on Bush’s ability to reign in the recession, and have made McLie out to be nothing more than a decrepit old political joke.

    Now he’s being passively endorsed by Iraq, which is a boon to his foreign policy folio.

    Soon to come: Obama at the Brandenburg Gate—with the international media watching—will be an event that even Cheney himself cannot hope to snuff out. And if Obama calls for America to rise up to face its challenges, then we can stop talking about putting more nails in McLie’s coffin—and start talking about putting the damned thing down in the hole….

  • “I fear that I’m going to become a liberal version of my father; only getting information from sources that reinforce my world view. — Eric Faulkner”

    It happens, but it doesn’t need to happen to you unless you allow it. There’s a wealth of information and perspective on the Internet and you’ve got a connection, so graze. I find the foreign press a good counterpoint from time to time, and looking into the historical context of issues can be an eyeopener. As for KO, he’s a media star and an entertainer. Sometimes he’s right on, sometimes he gets carried away. Fine for one course, but not an entire meal.

  • Meredtih Viera asked McCain some telling questions on his position, to which McCain completely dodge and regurgitated his “Iraq is the forefront of AQ activity pablum, which if one were to go to the CounterTerrorism blog- would disprove. McCain can’t read a map so how can we expect him to be up on the facts- he can’t even tell Sunni from Shia or where AQ is currently operating.
    cindy quit popping pills and looks like John started….

  • The media finally found their narrative so this story can exist now. All hail the brilliant strategist John McCain, author of the glorious Surge!!!!

  • BTW, you would think this story would work in favor of Obama since the Iraqis are endorsing his plan. Then again, you would think bin Laden popping up a few days before the 2004 election to taunt us would have reminded everyone of Bush’s dismal failure trying to capture the son of a bitch, but the media didn’t see it or report it that way. Oh noes, bin Laden is free and only daddy Bush can save us!

  • This isn’t a “win” for the Obama side. It is a rout for the McCain side. His whole campaign is built on the idea that in terms of national security issues, as exemplified by his Iraq policy choices (just the post-invasion policies, being wrong about the invasion doesn’t really count), he is clearly the only choice. For McCain to get any traction coming out of the summer and the conventions, the public has to be convinced that Obama’s policies on national security issues are not just “not the best choice”, but are dangerously out in left field.

    The centerpiece of this strategy has been to attempt to portray Obama’s Iraq policy as dangerously naive. That is going to very difficult to keep up following Maliki’s statements. The timing is also disasterous for McCain since it pretty much forecloses any later attempt he might make to moving toward the middle and endorsing a serious drawdown with a near horizon timeline (like the end of 2010), without looking like the fool he is. I suppose that McCain will try to get some kind of meme out there that Obama’s 16 month timeline was just a lucky guess on his part and had no basis in any understanding of the situation on the part of the candidate. Wrapped up with spin that ascribes the ability to even think of a complete redeployment within Obama’s timeframe to the success of the “surge” that McCain advocated. But I don’t think anyone will buy any of that snake oil, beyond the 30% deadenders who still think “Heckuva job Bushie.”

  • Bernard (#19)

    I think that’s a reasonable analysis but I’ll take issue with a few points.

    –McCain may indeed then have been right about the surge. But Obama’s been saying for a while that McCain is too focused on tactics and not enough on what our strategic interests are. This plays into that.

    –In addition, if McCain is right about the surge, then why keep the troops there? McCain and Bush both had opposed a timetable – and they have both now clearly moved in the direction of Obama’s positions. Short of ignoring that (which the MSM can do), that can’t be denied.

    –I can see how the right-wing would spin this that some Iraqi has “endorsed” Obama or some such. But many Americans want this war to end. They see the Iraqi PM wants it too. And he favors an approach similar to Obama.

    –Lastly, is support of the surge reason enough to make McCain the president? Is that a campaign strategy? “I got this one tactical thing right, so I should win.” Seems a bit odd to me.

    But good analysis overall.

  • McCain camp was lying and “mis-leading” long before the past week but now they have become desperate for they are being made a fool of on every issue. There is just enough of it leaking out to the public to show McCain’s desperation and just how unfit he really is to be president. Sure if the tables were turned it would be pounded out over the MSM’s drum core without break 24 hrs/d but still irregardless of McCain’s campaign rhetoric…Maliki’s statements were breaking news making it easy to put 2+2 together.

    McCain = incoherent, willfully ignorant, confused or just plainly not viable to be president.

  • Hey beep52,

    I agree with your perspective. I should have been more clear. I do seek news from many sources, including the foreign press. I was specifically referring to American television when I singled out KO. In fact, I wrapped the word news in quotes to indicate that I understand that he’s an entertainer, rather than a journalist. That said, can you name many other credible journalist on American Television?

  • Eric Faulkner @ 30: Sorry for the misunderstanding… the downside of reading while working! Other credible journalists? Bill Moyers. I never catch him live but his programs are available online.

  • I think, for many independents, they would like to vote Democratic because of the economy, the environment, choice, energy, the deficit. But the GOP and McCain have raised this doubt about national security, which trumps all other issues. So the thinking is: “I’d like to vote for Obama, but in the end, I gotta go McCain, because he has all this foreign policy and military expertise and experience.”
    But when Malaki endorses Obama’s plan, and it becomes clear that the Iraqis want the US out, it refutes many people’s last remaining reason to vote for McCain. Combined with a solid Presidential performance by Obama abroad, it may doom McCain.

  • In regards to;

    “Chris Hayes had a classic line on this story: “What’s truly amazing about this turn of events is that it more and more looks like the Prime Minister of Iraq is going to help engineer regime change back in the U.S.”

    • Very soon we will be told “The mice will see you now”

    • Quickly followed by Chalabi saying “thanks for all the fish” as he gets on a flight to Iran.

    • Anyone going to join me for many rounds of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters?

  • I was curious over the weekend how the McCain gang would spin this. I expected some level of creativity, but I didn’t expect blatant lying. — CB

    I expect, during his stay at Hanoi Hilton, McCain picked up propaganda truism #1: “lies are like abortion; they should be safe, legal and rare”. You embed them into a broader context of truths and semi truths, where they’re less obvious.

    In the current situation, propaganda lies are certainly safe — MSM is in the tank for McCain. They’re legal — Supreme Court told Faux it can lie if it wants to; the onus is on the public to untangle those lies. So, the only question that remains is: are they rare?

    And if they aren’t, if they’re so common that they become visible, why? My guess is that, over the course of 40+yrs, McCain has forgotten that part (along with his 4th grade geography) and his campaign is just too young to have learnt it in the first place. Add in the general Republican ineptitude and you end up with this kind of BS.

  • Conditions have improved in Iraq, but it will be several years before we have a solid analysis of what role the U.S. troop escalation played in making that happen. Unfortunately, the MSM and government officials have made the easy pronouncement that the “surge did it.” The years of ethnic cleansing, the number of deaths and how those deaths were apportioned among the demographics and the politics, the Sunni backlash against al Quaeda in Iraq, the U.S. payments to Sunni militias – and probably internal politics we have no awareness of, have all been part of the process. If a workable political process and civil society can be built without further civil war, it will be wonderful.

    But there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.

  • Ever since it became strikingly clear that NPR stands for “Nice Polite Republicans” or more likely ‘National Propaganda Radio’, I no longer listen because I can’t afford the destroyed radios and fixing the broken windows the radios cause when I heave them through. Granted NPR is more subtle, polite if you will, but no less deceptive and mendacious. Nothing the MSM, in all its forms, does is credible any longer.

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