Iraq War II — US Forces Now Take Orders From Iraq Prime Minister
Christy Hardin Smith writes at FireDogLake about how US forces have been ordered to end their search for a captured American soldier. Unbelievable.
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I am shaking with rage at the moment. American soldiers do not abandon their own. Unless, of course, someone orders them to do so. Which is exactly what happened when the Bush Administration — via it’s envoy Zalmay Khalilzad — agreed to lift the eight day long blockade and search and rescue mission for the captured American soldier…on the demand and order of the Iraqi government.
You read me correctly, the US envoy in Iraq has decided that our US military personnel should take orders from the Iraqi government and abandon one of our soldiers to the Mahdi Army. That this decision occurred abruptly after Stephen Hadley’s visit to Baghdad yesterday raises a whole host of questions in my mind — and the press had better damn well be asking for some answers from the Bush Administration today.
Kirk Semple writes about this development in The New York Times.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints from the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday, in what appeared to be his latest and boldest gambit in an increasingly tense struggle for more independence from his American protectors.
Mr. Maliki’s public declaration seemed at first to catch American commanders off guard. But by nightfall, American troops had abandoned all the positions in eastern and central Baghdad that they had set up last week with Iraqi forces as part of a search for a missing American soldier. The checkpoints had snarled traffic and disrupted daily life and commerce throughout the eastern part of the city.
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The abrupt declaration by Mr. Maliki on Tuesday followed a visit to Baghdad on Monday by President Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, who was here to discuss how to reverse the country’s slide toward all-out civil war.
The Iraq War II has spun out of US control. When will the American public say to our elected officials “Enough is enough” and force our government to craft a sane and reasonable exit from this horrible mess?