President Bush has long maintained that if the Iraqi government wants the U.S. to leave Iraq, then the U.S. would do just that, as he said in May 2007:

We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It’s their government’s choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave.

Today, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggested having a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops. “The direction we are taking is to have a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to have a timetable for their withdrawal,” Maliki’s office quoted him as saying.

But the administration has rebuffed Maliki’s request for a timeline. Asked about the prime minister’s comments today, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman hedged on whether the administration would follow the Iraqi government’s request, criticizing timelines as “artificial“:

WHITMAN: [I]t is dependent on conditions on the ground. … But timelines tend to be artificial in nature. In a situation where things are as dynamic as they are in Iraq, I would just tell you, it’s usually best to look at these things based on conditions on the ground.

The State Department also hedged on whether the Bush administration would listen to Maliki. In a briefing today, spokesperson Sean McCormack said the remark may have been a transcription error:

McCORMACK: Well, that’s really the part — the point at which I would seek greater clarification in terms of remarks. I’ve seen the same press reports that you have, but I haven’t yet had an opportunity to get greater clarify as to exactly to what Mr. Maliki was referring or if, in fact, that’s an accurate reporting of what he said.

As multiple press accounts – as well as Maliki’s office — have indicated, Maliki did indeed suggest a timeline for withdrawal in negotiating a security agreement with the United States.

“I’ve got confidence in him,” Bush said in 2007 about Maliki’s leadership. But despite its rhetoric, it seems the Bush administration could care less what the Iraqi people or the Iraqi government want.

Given that national security is John McCain’s only real issue, it’s understandable why he tries to subordinate every other issue to it. For example, asked by Fortune magazine last month what he sees as “the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy,” McCain responded (after staring into space for eleven seconds) “the struggle…against radical Islamic extremism.” Got that? Not the housing crisis, not the price of oil, but radical Islamic extremism.

Today this tendency reached a new level of ridiculousness, as McCain promised that “victory” in Iraq and Afghanistan will enable him to balance the budget:

“The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”

This could be an attempt by McCain to cover for his admission that he doesn’t know much about economics by suggesting that that doesn’t matter, because once we achieve victory against terrorism, every American will be a millionaire! We’re gonna be rolling in the dough! Victory dividend!

Sadly, however, back in the reality based community there are some problems with this. Here are two. In McCain’s view, “victory” in Iraq means we get to stay in Iraq for 100 more years. How, exactly, does this save us money? Also, McCain has promised us more wars and a bigger military to fight them. Where does he think the money for this is coming from? (Atrios has an idea.)

Hilzoy has a detailed examination of McCain’s economic plan. It’s not pretty.

On June 26, a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of tribal sheikhs in Iraq’s Anbar province and killed 20 people, including three U.S. Marines. The episode was widely reported by U.S. media. Zoriah Miller, a photojournalist and blogger embedded with U.S. Marines in Iraq, took pictures of the attack’s grisly aftermath, including one of the fallen soldiers.

The U.S. military, however, was incensed at Miller’s portrayal of the horrors of war and immediately “disembedded” him from his Marine unit. IPS reports on the fall-out:

“Tuesday [Jul. 1] I awoke to a call in their combat operations centre, and the person on the phone told me they were a PAO (Public Affairs Officer) at Camp Fallujah, and he wanted me to take my blog down right away,” Miller told IPS. “I asked them why, and was told then called back after five minutes by a higher ranking PAO who claimed I had broken my contract by showing photos of dead Americans with U.S. uniforms and boots.”

Miller said the PAO claimed he was not allowed, by the embed contract, to show dead or wounded U.S. citizens or soldiers in the field. “I never signed any contract for that,” Miller said.

Miller also told the Ventura County Star that he believed he was within the rules because the victim was unidentifiable. Additionally, he waited to post the pictures until four days after the attack. Miller said that he received strong support from the lower-ranking Marines, who “were on [his] side.”

The military may have realized its case was weak. Two days later, on July 3, Miller received an official letter with a new reason for his dismissal: He had posted “detailed information of the effectiveness of the attack” and therefore “put all U.S. forces in Iraq at greater risk for harm.” Miller explains the military’s spinning:

“The bottom line is that the thing they cited as the reason for my dismissal was ‘information the enemy could use against you’. They realised, probably from keeping track of my blog, that I was not showing identifiable features of a soldier…and they couldn’t find a reason to kick me out. Because it was a high ranking person who got killed, they were all fired up.”

Miller concluded, “Up to that point they said it was because I showed pictures of bodies with pieces of uniform and boots. The letter, though, doesn’t mention that at all. I checked the document I had about ground rules for media embeds, and I followed them.”

Miller now plans on returning to the United States and appealing the military’s decision. “You’re a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble,” he said.

Digg It!