Bush Pulls Back on Criticism of Iraqi PM
President Bush attempted to exercise spin control to smooth over his relationship with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday, emphasizing the Iraqi people's claim on their own government after his comments a day before seemed to signal his displeasure with Maliki's leadership.
President Bush attempted to exercise spin control to smooth over his relationship with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday, emphasizing the Iraqi people’s claim on their own government after his comments a day before seemed to signal his displeasure with Maliki’s leadership.
AS CHAOS UNFOLDS, FIND SOLID GROUND…AP via SCnow.com:
On Tuesday, Bush had offered a tepid endorsement of the Iraqi government, expressing frustration at the lack of progress and saying it was up to the Iraqi people to decide whether to replace those in power. The remark brought an angry response from al-Maliki who said, “No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people.”
The White House set out to reframe Bush’s comment and the way it was interpreted.
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the president’s words were not intended to signal a withdrawal of support for al-Maliki. As a result of the heavy media coverage of his remarks at the North American summit in Canada, Bush decided to insert a direct line of support for al-Maliki in his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference.
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Pentagon planners' use of such words as "freedom" and "hope" and catchy code names for U.S. operations reflects our utter hypocrisy.
The Iraqi parliament finally voted in the government of new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Monday, in what U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called a “turning point.”
If prime minister-designate Haidar al-Abadi in Iraq is to hope to defeat the so-called Islamic State (actually a kind of mafia made up of serial murderers and marauders), he must find a way to reincorporate Iraq’s Sunni Arabs into the government.
Arguably, the so-called Islamic State (actually a vicious gang of serial killers) could never have taken over northern and western Iraq if the largely Sunni Arab populations there had not been deeply alienated from the government in Baghdad by the openly sectarian politics of former Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Did Nouri al-Maliki's policies help create the country’s current impasse?
Middle Eastern regional powers joined the U.S. in welcoming the appointment of Haider al-Abadi as Iraq’s next prime minister, creating a dorm full of strange bedfellows.
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