Bush Words Keep on Changing

Yesterday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would like to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Today, however, the Bush administration rejected the timetable.

The United States remains opposed to setting an "arbitrary" date for withdrawing troops from Iraq, the White House said on Wednesday after Iraqi officials called for a timetable as part of a security agreement being negotiated with Washington.

"We have always been opposed and remain so to an arbitrary withdrawal date," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said to reporters traveling with President George W. Bush in Japan.

The United States believes those decisions should be "based on conditions on the ground" and Iraqi officials agree with that, she said.

However, “Our stance in the negotiations underway with the American side will be strong … We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn’t have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq,” al-Rubaie said. The comments by Mouwaffak al-Rubaie were the strongest yet by an Iraqi official about the deal now under negotiation with U.S. officials. It came a day after Iraq’s prime minister first said publicly that he expects the pending troop deal with the United States to have some type of timetable for withdrawal.

In an April 24, 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, however, President said he would remove troops if asked by Iraq, but he predicted that Maliki would not ask for a withdrawal:

ROSE: But if he said get out now, we don’t want you anymore–

BUSH: I don’t see how we could stay. It is his country.

ROSE: But if he said that, it would lead to the catastrophe that you have suggested.

BUSH: That’s why he’s not going to say it.

ROSE: You don’t think he’ll say it?

BUSH: I don’t. No, I don’t.

“We’re looking at conditions, not calendars here,” State Department spokeperson Gonzalo Gallegos said today.

Has the world ever known such arrogance in a superpower? Not since the Rome of Nero and Caligula have we seen its like.