Maliki Tirade: “Hillary Clinton Needs To Come To Her Senses!”
(AP) - Iraq’s beleaguered prime minister on Sunday lashed out at American critics who have called for his ouster, saying Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Carl Levin need to “come to their senses.”
Nouri al-Maliki, who is fighting to hold his government together, issued a series of stinging ripostes against a variety of foreign officials who recently have spoken negatively about his leadership. But those directed at Democrats Clinton, of New York, and Levin, of Michigan, were most strident.
“There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin. They should come to their senses!” al-Maliki said at a news conference.
Al-Maliki launched the verbal counteroffensive in the final days before the American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are due in Washington to report to Congress on progress in Iraq since the introduction of 30,000 more America troops.
The Shiite prime minister said a negative report by Petraeus would not cause him to change course, although he said he expected that the U.S. general would “be supportive of the government and will disappoint the politicians who are relying on it” to be negative.
Al-Maliki also criticized some U.S. military actions.
“Concerning American raids on Shula (a northern Shiite neighborhood) and Sadr City (the Shiite slum enclave in east Baghdad). There were big mistakes committed in these operations. The terrorist himself should be targeted not his family.
“When they want to detain one person, they should not kill 10 others. These are mistakes which we have to deal with. We will not allow the detaining of innocent people. Only the criminals should be detained,” the angry al-Maliki declared.
Two nights ago the U.S. military raided the Shula neighborhood and said it killed eight terrorists who had attacked an American patrol from rooftops. Some Iraqis reported civilians were killed and wounded. Such independent reports are often not reliable.
Sorry about the collateral damage, you’ll thank us later. But, join the club on “lashing out”. A lot of us Americans lash out at them also. Bunch of whiney little gutter snipes.
August 26th, 2007 at 5:46 amI thought Hillary said it was critical for foreign leaders to like the presidient?
August 26th, 2007 at 7:34 amNotice that Al-Maliki criticised operations in his neck of the woods. Think he cares about the Sunnis or Kurds? Think again…..
August 26th, 2007 at 8:09 am“This is not Hillary’s village!”
LOL. Hillary Takes A Village
August 26th, 2007 at 8:15 amHere’s an interesting bit of news. Allawi is returning to Iraq to oppose Maliki. This might be interesting…that is if the mafioso dons in the Shit-ite militias don’t get to him first?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/26/allawi.returns/index.html
August 26th, 2007 at 10:31 amMaliki just went up a bit in my estimation
August 26th, 2007 at 9:27 pm