{"id":12426,"date":"2007-08-03T16:45:37","date_gmt":"2007-08-03T20:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12426.html"},"modified":"2007-08-03T16:45:37","modified_gmt":"2007-08-03T20:45:37","slug":"maliki-gives-up-on-timetables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/maliki-gives-up-on-timetables\/","title":{"rendered":"Maliki gives up on timetables"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki in November 2006<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Maliki] told ABC News today that he is moving to disarm militias in Iraq, and expects his forces to be ready to take over from the U.S. command in June, 2007.<\/p>\n

“I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready, to receive this command and to command its own forces, and I can tell you that by next June our forces will be ready,” Maliki said in an interview with Charles Gibson. […]<\/p>\n

“Are you saying to me that the al-Sadr brigades should be disarmed and you will set about to do that?” Gibson asked Maliki.<\/p>\n

“Definitely. And the government is doing that with all militias, with no exception. There will be only the arms for government troops,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki yesterday<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Maliki] told ABC News he does not want to set any timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, a major shift in his position.<\/p>\n

“Anything specific I can not give, neither us nor the U.S. government can set up a timetable,” Maliki said. […]<\/p>\n

In Thursday’s interview in his office in the heavily protected Green Zone Maliki said he wouldn’t rule out U.S. troops still being in Iraq in five years time<\/em>. (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remind me again about all the “progress”?
\n
\nAlso, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had some comments yesterday that clearly broke<\/a> with the standard White House talking points.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he was discouraged by the resignation of the Sunnis from Iraq’s cabinet and that the Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq’s sectarian factions.<\/p>\n

In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration’s Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said, “I think the developments on the political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level.” He said that despite the Sunni withdrawal, “my hope is that it can all be patched back together.” […]<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that when the Bush administration decided to send the additional troops, “We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation, which, let’s face it, is not some kind of secondary issue.”<\/p>\n

He was referring to the failure of Iraq’s Parliament to pass legislation distributing oil revenue, setting a timetable for provincial elections and easing employment restrictions on former Baath Party members — measures that the Bush administration considers crucial for reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This week, perhaps more than any in months, the White House its allies have claimed the momentum in the debate over Iraq. It looks like the Defense Secretary didn’t get the memo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki in November 2006: [Maliki] told ABC News today that he is moving to disarm militias in Iraq, and expects his forces to be ready to take over from the U.S. command in June, 2007. “I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready, to receive this command […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}