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Maliki says US era of Iraq dominance is over
Nice going, Joe ...
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday that the era of US dominance was over, in a broadside to Washington almost six years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. The Shiite premier, boosted by the strong showing by his allies in provincial elections, said Iraq was now taking charge of its own destiny and was making good progress toward rebuilding the war-torn country.

His remarks were a pointed rebuke to US Vice President Joe Biden, who last week said Washington would have to be “more aggressive” in pushing Baghdad toward faster political reform.
Ah, the Bambi administration, making friends and winning influence around the world ...
“The time for putting pressure on Iraq is over,” Maliki told reporters, asked about Biden’s comments. “The Iraqi government knows what are its responsibilities. We are carrying out reform and we are in the last step of the reconciliation.”

Biden said the January 31 provincial elections—in which Maliki’s allies triumphed—had shown that progress was being made, but more needed to be done as Iraq’s leaders had not “gotten their political arrangements together yet.”

The new US administration of President Barack Obama would have to be “much more aggressive... forcing them to deal with those issues,” Biden said.

Maliki’s remarks are a strong signal ahead of a general election due to be held in about a year that he is unwilling to allow the United States to dictate how Iraq should rebuild and consolidate its fledgling democracy. “We succeeded in solving problems created by Paul Bremer (head of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority put in place after the 2003 invasion), like the dismantling of the army and other institutions,” he added, in another dig at the history of America’s influence in Iraq.
Posted by: Steve White 2009-02-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=262241