Maliki Gates
January 18th, 2007News headlines today suggest that Iraq’s Prime Minister “dissed” the United States, and he did, but he also drew a fascinating, ironic parallel and made a great point.
The Iraqi government’s need for American troops would “dramatically go down” in three to six months if the United States accelerated the process of equipping and arming Iraq’s security forces, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday. The head of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim-led government defended his country’s independence and sovereignty and called on U.S. leaders to show faith in his ability to lead.
Maliki disputed President Bush’s remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein “looked like it was kind of a revenge killing” and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s Senate testimony last week that Maliki’s administration was on “borrowed time.” The prime minister said statements such as Rice’s “give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration,” Maliki said. “But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government.”
Speaking through an interpreter to a group of reporters for an hour in his offices in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, Maliki found several ways to say that Iraq is beholden to no country. He defended Iraq’s constitutional right to the death penalty, its commitment to dialogue with Iran and Syria despite U.S. opposition to those governments, and its determination to use Iraqi troops to lead the latest effort to pacify Baghdad. At a time when Bush has committed an additional 21,500 troops to the fight in Iraq, Maliki went further than he has before in establishing a time frame for drawing down the U.S. presence.
“If we succeed in implementing the agreement between us to speed up the equipping and providing weapons to our military forces, I think that within three to six months our need for the American troops will dramatically go down. That’s on the condition that there are real strong efforts to support our military forces and equipping them and arming them,” Maliki said. In a statement issued by Maliki’s office Tuesday, he said Iraq would continue to build up its armed forces “so it will be possible to withdraw the Multinational forces from cities, or withdraw 50,000 soldiers from Iraq.”
The irony of Maliki’s comments is found in his suggestion that the Bush Administration is supporting terrorism through dissent. Given that the White House has maintained that as its party line since September eleventh, it’s great to see another country give Bush the same song and dance. That it’s Iraq, the country whose circumstances have most often prompted his “aid and comfort to the enemy” line, makes it all the more ironic.
That said, I’m all for his comments. The Administration should escalate its arming of Iraqi soldiers and begin pulling out in a few months. I’ve given the very same suggestion here countless times, though mine is a longer timeline (a year to a year and a half) and contains deeper troop cuts (hundred thousand or so) than Maliki’s. Still, it’s something that could be done and would do well, done.
Now, to Afghanistan, where the Defense Secretary is said to be considering a troop increase.
Gates said he had discussed the situation with the commander of Afghanistan’s NATO force, General David Richards, and others. Asked if the commanders had made a case for more troops, Gates said: “Yes.” “They’ve indicated what they can do with different force levels,” Gates told reporters at the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, at Bagram, north of Kabul, adding he would take those ideas back to the U.S. joint chiefs of staff for study.
“At that point I’ll make a recommendation to the president,” said Gates, who arrived in Afghanistan late on Monday on his first trip to the country since taking over as defense secretary. Asked how many more troops might be sent, he said: “It depends on different scenarios and those are the kinds of decisions that we’re going to have to look at.” There are more than 40,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, the highest level since 2001, about 22,000 of them American.
I must say, it should be more than a “consideration.” At this point it’s something that should’ve been done yesterday, not tomorrow, but since it wasn’t, it should be done tomorrow and not next month. Yet they delay and delay and delay, and all the while, the Taliban regroup and retake parts of the country, and the Americans let it happen. This is a War on Terror?