US To Maliki - Have You Forgotten We're In Charge?

By Cernig

By way of following on from Fester's post today and mine yesterday, it's worth noting that the Bush administration has now told Iraq's leadership to remember their place.

The U.S. government rejected calls by Iraq to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from the country and said the planned reduction in force levels will be dictated by conditions on the ground.

The U.S. and Iraq are negotiating an agreement that will lay the legal boundaries for the operation of coalition forces after their United Nations mandate expires at the end of December.

``We want to withdraw, we will withdraw,'' State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters in Washington yesterday. ``However, that decision will be conditions-based.''

Meanwhile, talking of conditions, the US general in charge of training Iraq's internal security force - and despite the name that's really all the Iraqi Army amounts to - says the job will be done by2009.

"The ground forces will mostly be done by the middle of next year," Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

That could be between April and August, Dubik said.

Dubik declined to say when all U.S. forces, including naval and air forces, would be finished with Iraqi combat operations. He said that would depend on when the Iraqi government completes certain tasks, such as purchasing its own aircraft.

So crucially, since Iraq is a satrapy with no military capable of defending its own national security against external threats and - by US design - no plans to change that equation, the conditions will never be right unless and until the U.S. says so. It's a policy of perpetual occupation John McCain is fully on board with.

Update: RockRichard at VetVoice links to Bush statements saying that the US would leave Iraq if the Iraqis asked and that troops levels would be decided by commanders on the ground. Well...now the Iraqis have asked for a timetable and US commanders on the ground have said that timetable could have a withdrawal date in August 2009.

So, where's the problem, George? What's the next invented reason for the perpetual occupation?

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

"So, where's the problem, George? What's the next invented reason for the perpetual occupation?"
Who will protect all the folks from Exonn when they go to Iraq to steal the oil?