Aide: Al-Maliki a friend but not ‘America’s man’

[IDemo]

Remarks contrast with joint U.S.-Iraqi statement released a day earlier

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15454290/

Updated: 9:53 a.m. ET Oct. 28, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the U.S. ambassador that he was Washington’s friend but “not America’s man in Iraq,” ratcheting up his increasingly bitter dispute with the Bush administration, an aide said Saturday.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced the death of a Marine in the restive Anbar province west of Baghdad on Friday, raising to 98 the number of American forces killed in Iraq in October, already the fourth deadliest month since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

The Shiite leader made the declaration in a meeting Friday with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, after which the men issued a rare joint statement declaring the need to work together to set timelines to clamp off spiraling violence attributed to Shiite militias and death squads.

“I am a friend of the United States, but I am not America’s man in Iraq,” Hassan al-Sneid, a close al-Maliki aide, quoted the Iraqi leader as telling Khalilzad during the meeting.

[acmavm]

1. What to think, what to think? Is he saying this to make points with

al Sadr and the boys, just a way of showing what a tough by dedicated servant to the new Iraqi government he is, independent and all that.

Or is this for real and he's trying to walk that fine line between lap dog and leader? And risk pissing off Cheney and Halliburton?

Either way, he can't make anybody happy, the guy is screwed. Dead if we leave Iraq, dead if he leaves the Green Zone.

I hope he has his life insurance premiums paid up.

[NOLADEM]

2. That distinction will be lost on his eventual executioner

[hadrons]

3. Al-Maliki say hello to Diem, Saddam, Trujillo, and Noriega

they said the same thing