(CNN) — [1] A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.
“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday.
“That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” he said.
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks “were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.”
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.
So, in other words, what’s happened here is that Maliki is NOT backing Obama’s “plan”. Gee… I wonder why the press would change the facts? Perhaps to suit it’s own mantra?Clearly, what we have here isn’t news reporting, it’s liberal advocacy with a press pass stapled to it.
So much for Obama’s ability as a statesman, to be caught so quickly, in what clearly is an agenda driven mistranslation… no… call it lie, actually…
Oh, and with more and more people ending up under Obama’s bus you watch and see how long it takes for Maliki to go from ‘Friend of Obama to ‘a creation of George Bush”. I’m telling you… it’s likely already happened.
Quips Allahpundit: [2]
As if it’s not bad enough that they’re trying to spin this after the fact, the Times reports that the statement was put out by Centcom [3], just to make the U.S. fingerprints on it extra legible, I guess. In any event, Maliki’s desire to make any timetable contingent upon further security gains was already clear from the Spiegel translation — or more specifically, the first version of the Spiegel translation, before they went and surreptitiously changed it [4].
McCain’s team put out a statement tonight, too. Quote:
Let’s be clear, the only reason that the conversation about reducing troop levels in Iraq is happening is because John McCain challenged the failed Rumsfield-strategy in Iraq and argued for the surge strategy that is responsible for the successes we’ve achieved and which Barack Obama opposed. Unlike Barack Obama, John McCain has never ignored the facts on the ground in Iraq, he’s never avoided the warzone before proposing new strategy, and he’s never voted against funding our troops in the field. If John McCain was following Barack Obama’s lead on foreign policy, the United States would have already withdrawn from Iraq in a humiliating defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.
Quite so, although I’d have re-written that as, “If John McCain and Nuri al-Maliki were following Barack Obama’s lead…” Barry O’s accomplished the foreign policy masterstroke here of screaming for withdrawal year after year when it would have been a horrific idea and now, with the jihadis and militias finally subdued to the point where it at least wouldn’t be disastrous, he wants credit for having been ahead of the curve. You truly are a visionary, Messiah.
Yeah, really. But, you know, what really concerns me here and ought to concern you, is the press which has always been in the tank for the Democrats has now sunk to a new low, here… openly changing facts to help the Democrats. Facts don’t matter, so long as Democrats get elected.
What biased press?