Maliki Disagrees With Petraeus’s ‘Pause,’ Says ‘U.S. Troops Should Be Pulled Out’

from ThinkProgress

David Petraeus, top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress this week that he is recommending to President Bush that the United States “pause” the draw down of troops in Iraq this July for at least 45 days in order to assess the security situation there.

Bush has now accepted Petraeus’s recommendation, “leaving open the possibility that about 140,000 U.S. servicemen and women will still be in the war zone when the next president takes office.”

But there is one important decision-maker that Petraeus and Bush don’t seem to be listening to: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The AP reports that Maliki told Bush yesterday that he “disagrees” with Petraeus’s recommendation “citing the growing capabilities of Iraq’s own security forces”:

The prime minister told Bush during a 20-minute telephone conversation on Wednesday that Iraqi security forces are capable of carrying out their duties and U.S. troops should be pulled out as the situation permits, according to a senior government adviser who sat in on the phone conversation. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the confidential details.

(Continued here.)