Iraq's Prime Minister Supports Obama's Withdrawl Timetable

So today I woke up to this good news from the Prime Minister of Iraq...

When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then continued: "US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Maliki was careful to back away from outright support for Obama. "Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business," he said. But then, apparently referring to Republican candidate John McCain's more open-ended Iraq policy, Maliki said: "Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems."

I wonder how John McCain and the White House will try and spin this one? Is McCain now going to say he can get the troops out in 12 months? I'm sure the Prime Minister will be getting a phone call from the White House soon demanding answers. Most likely after some pressure there will be a retraction or claims of a misquote, that is until the next one. Maybe this is politics to gain more leverage with the White House in their current U.S. troop status agreements. Maybe he is being serious. I think he is being serious, and the pressure from the White House did come because he is now claiming he was "misquoted", unlikely, his statement seemed real clear to me.

So this brings about a great question why do the Republicans want to keep staying there? I mean if the "surge" worked so well and things are so great and the Prime Minister and the people want us gone, Why are we trying to stay? Oil, Permanent Bases I think are the reasons why and the whole purpose of this new status agreement. To lock the next President in just in case he doesn't share bush's crazed ideology. We have not locked up the oil yet. I guarantee as soon as our companies have the oil locked up and there is a few permanent bases there. The Republicans will finally want to leave. But at what costs? How many deaths should we accept for oil before we finally put our foot down?