Obama In Iraq, Maliki In Translation (Updated)

By Cernig

Barack Obama is in Iraq today and hasn't yet done anything newsworthy other than just arrive. He's expected to meet Saint General Petraeus and Iraqi PM Maliki today, so we'll see.

However, Maliki's interview with Der Spiegel continues to drive news coverage of Iraq today, with the NY Times getting a hold of the original audio of the interview. (H/t Steve Benen)

Diplomats from the United States Embassy in Baghdad spoke to Mr. Maliki’s advisers on Saturday, said an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss what he called diplomatic communications. After that, the government’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, issued a statement casting doubt on the magazine’s rendering of the interview.

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.”

That seems pretty conclusive to me.

Meanwhile, back in the States, McCain is still banging the "Obama was wrong about the Surge" drum to distract from his own poor judgement in backing the original invasion. And his neocon (and former shill for Chalabi) senior foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann is going even further, telling reporters that Obama:

"is stubbornly adhering to an unconditional withdrawal that places politics above the advice of our military commanders, the success of our troops, and the security of the American people."

Whereas McCain and Scheunemann are just ignoring the will of the Iraqi people and the advice of their Prime Minister.

As Attaturk writes: "let's just call it Imperialism and be done with it."

Update: Via Spencer and Democracy Arsenal, now Maliki's spokesman has flip-flopped on his walkback too! (Urgh - AP link -sorry.)

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.

Spencer puts it in a nutshell.

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.

Want to bet he does the latter? It's what Dubya would do.