Summary
[Al-Maliki] has hardly hidden his opposition to U.S. ambitions to maintain a major long-term role in Iraq. One of his first moves was to propose negotiating a timetable for complete U.S. withdrawal with the Sunni insurgents. He soon clashed with U.S. officials over their determination to launch a campaign against [Shi]'a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr had been a key political ally of al-Maliki, and the Mahdi Army was an important asset in a broader Shi'a campaign to eliminate Sunni political-military power in Baghdad.
The Iraqi leader angered U.S. officials in late October 2006 by intervening to call off a U.S.Iraqi cordon and search operation against the Mahdi Army in Sadr City. When [George W. Bush] met with al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan on Nov. 30, 2006, to discuss a possible U.S. troop increase, he had hoped to get approval for U.S. troops to occupy Sadr City. As Michael Gordon revealed in his Aug. 31 account of Bush policymaking on the surge, however, al-Maliki told Bush he wanted U.S. troops to stay out of the center of the capital.This al-Maliki record of oppositiofi to U.S. political-military interests apparently failed to shake the Bush administration's belief that he would yield to U.S. demands in the end. That faith appears to reflect the official military triumphalism associated with Gen. [David Petraeus]'s counterinsurgency strati egy - a residual faith in the power of the U.S. military's presence in Iraq to sweep away all local obstaicles to U.S. victory.See the full content of this document
Extract
Iraq Says All Troops Out by 2011
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Iraqi Prime Minister Noun al-Maliki signaled last week that that all U.S. troops - including those with non-combat functions - must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration.
That pronouncement, along with other moves indicating that the Iraqi position was hardening rather than preparing for a c...See the full content of this document
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