Some Suggested Bush - Maliki Summit Topics

As Bush announces plans to hold a summit with Iraq's prime minister, the quagmire is getting deeper. Let's review some of the things they might want to consider, shall we?

"We will be greeted as liberators" - A new survey by WPO shows how well that one worked. 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis in Iraq want occupation forces to leave within a year. 61% back attacks on occupation troops even though 94% dissaporve of Al-Qaida.

"We will stand down as they stand up" - In dozens of official interviews compiled by the Army for its oral history archives, officers who had been involved in training and advising Iraqis bluntly criticized almost every aspect of the effort. Corruption is rife within the Iraqi security forces, even at the highest level. An Iraqi general responsible for a Shi'ite district of Baghdad has been arrested along with three senior officers in a corruption probe. They are only the latest. Given that some estimates put militia membership in Iraq's security forces at as high as 70%, it's unclear whether those forces standing up would help any.

"Iraqi oil will pay for the invasion and reconstruction" and, more recently, "Iraqi oil will be the glue that holds the nation together" - There is still no agreement on who owns Iraq's oil, the regions or the nation as a whole. The Kurds, secure in their conviction that the U.S. will suppport whatever they do, have already announced their intention to ignore any decsion they don't like while the Shiites don't intend sharing with the Sunnis. In any case, production levels are still far lower than the neocons promised they would be.

Maliki might want to mention that Iraqi civilian deaths are now higher than at any time since the invasion. Even the motorcades of senior government figures are coming under attack. I would note, too, that those senior figures seem to still be relying on American personnel for security - a damning indictment both of their nation's "sovereignty" and of the esteem in which those same politicians are now held by the people who voted them into office. Maliki may want to reserve a spot on any prospective future last helicopter.

And Maliki may also want to mention to Bush the way in which those really responsible for the quagmire - Bush and the coterie of neocon Wormtongues who whispered in the ears of the American people, convincing them that the invasion was a good idea - are now trying to wriggle out of taking any blame. They have blamed leberals and the so-called liberal media, they have blamed the Iraqis themselves for what they did to Iraq. Some have even tried to blame saner Bush officials for preventing Bush from committing enough atrocities, from being "tough enough". And when all else has failed, they have attempted to rewrite history. Maliki would be justified in asking why these people are still allowed administration access and acclaim for their poisonous words.