Bush Pressured Maliki to Revise Withdrawal Date to Bail Out McCain
As you may recall, over the summer Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki embarrassed John McCain by endorsing Barack Obama’s call for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2010, thus rejecting the Bush/McCain position that such a timeline would constitute some form of surrender, appeasement, or other such disastrous measure. Maliki reiterated this stance several times, and then wound up in negotiations with the Bush administration. That process ended in a withdrawal timetable being set, thus essentially vindicating Obama, but Bush was able to save face by the fact that the end date was pushed back to 2011 — thus preventing it from being a complete ratification of what Obama had already proposed. But a source has alerted Think Progress to the fact that Maliki made the following statement (in Arabic, translation according to the Open Source Center) during an interview with Iraqi television:
Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.
In other words, Bush successfully pressured Maliki to push the withdrawal date back specifically in order to aid John McCain’s presidential campaign. Matt Duss wonders “What did McCain know about this, and when did he know it?” Good questions.
28 Responses to “Bush Pressured Maliki to Revise Withdrawal Date to Bail Out McCain”
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September 23rd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Yes, but Maliki didn’t author the SURGE ™, which is the only important foreign policy decision in all of world history, so what does Maliki know about Iraq?
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
So we see a classic move out of the Rove playbook: Accusing your opponent of doing what you yourself were actually guilty of. Remember just a week or two ago, Randy Schuenemann was accusing Obama of working to delay troop withdrawals from Iraq?
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:32 am
“Country First”
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Hip-Hop Second.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I don’t think the quote means what you say it does, Matt. I can’t say without reading the context in which Maliki said it but it doesn’t sound to me like he’s saying that Bush pressured him not to change the withdrawal date. It sounds like Bush just wanted him to change his characterization of it. Look at the quote (emphasis added):
Maliki appears to me to be saying that where they were originally going to announce a deadline of 2010 but still be “withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq” over the course of the following year, now they would announce the end of 2011 as a “final date” when no troops would be left at all. Same thing, different package.
This would let Bush/McCain save face by not having the withdrawal appear to happen exactly when Obama (and Maliki) said it should, but would not actually require them to change the withdrawal plan at all. This would be flimflam but it wouldn’t be treason, which is what your post suggests.
The one difficulty with my suggested interpretation is the phrase “but they asked for a change [in date]“. If the text in square brackets is a fair characterization of what Maliki said then my interpretation may be wrong.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Proofreading!
I meant to say “pressured him to change the withdrawal date” NOT “pressured him not to change the withdrawal date” in the first paragraph.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Ditto Andrew. But I’d be surprised if this was primarily about *McCain,* rather than the elections in general (and embracing down-ticket contests). I just don’t see how it helps McCain all that much whether the timeline is as year closer or further from Obama’s date — the key political point was scored when they agreed to set a timeline date at all. The political value of the added year is, by comparison, tiny — and I can’t imagine Bush (more specifically Rice and foreign policy crew) would push hard for it primarily to help his old rival.
September 23rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Andrew has a point. The text can be interpreted different ways. But if Matt is right, and Bush did pressure Maliki to extend the timetable, it brings up the question of how many U.S. troops the administration was willing to sacrifice during that year just to bail out McCain.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Of all of the heinous, unconscionable, dispicable, perverse activities this crimnal band has exhibited thus far, I could give less than a s#*t about this non-story. This is a blip on the radar screen.
The President of the United States, his Vice-President and all of their complicit henchmen (hench-women in Condi’s case) are demonstrably mass-murderers. When is the press going to call them what they are? Mass-murderers. Mass-murderers. These people are mass-murderers. Get it through your stupified, prescription drug-addled, dumbed-down by televison and infotainment, retarded, thick American skulls: these people are MURDERERS, every bit as much as any terrorist.
September 24th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Why isn’t this story on the front page of every major newspaper in America? Where is the outrage? To hell with impeachment, why hasn’t Congress demanded the resignations of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for playing politics with the lives of our men and women in the military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan? What will be left of America after being bankrupted by President Bush’s failed and sales pitched economic policies before Congress by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke to save Wall Street as a cost of $700 billion plus for political purposes?
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