Have I not been telling you how greedy the Iraqis have turned out to be? Well here is some more evidence:

The Iraqi government could end the year with as much as a $79 billion budget surplus as ever-increasing oil revenues pile on top of leftover income the Iraqis still haven’t spent on their national rebuilding effort, congressional auditors say.

A report by the Government Accountability Office made public Tuesday prompted renewed calls from senators that Baghdad pay more of the bill for its own reconstruction, which has been heavily supported with U.S. funds.

They are hardly paying their fair share of the rebuilding costs. They are hardly reimbursing us for the costs of liberation and when they do it’s used to buy our debt, creating potential leverage for Iraq down the road. We refuse to demand oil as reimbursement.

I don’t understand how more people don’t see this going on, and now that Iraq is increasingly secure, boom, they’re done with us. They essentially tell us to get out.

This is how they repay for liberating them from the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

There is a fascinating article out right now from the The New York Sun about the possibility that Ahmad Chalabi might be the adviser behind Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s seeming agreement with Barack Hussein Obama’s troop withdrawal plan.

Here is an excerpt:

In throwing his support behind Senator Obama’s plan for a 16-month timetable for an American withdrawal from Iraq, Prime Minister al-Maliki is calculating that Mr. Obama may well be the next president of America, and betting that a successful visit by Mr. Obama to Baghdad will advance Iraqi interests in a new administration.

It was a move aimed at ingratiating the Shiite ruling majority in Baghdad with the man they expect to win the November presidential election, American and Iraqi officials said. If it works, it could be a stroke of brilliance, putting Mr. Obama in debt to the Iraqi leader for saving what could have been a disastrous trip to Iraq and defusing what could have been a troubling campaign issue. It could also backfire if a President McCain gets the idea that the Iraqi government is betraying the American politician who, after President Bush, has risked the most on a successful Iraq.

The matter was taken up at a meeting of Iraq’s National Security Council on Thursday on the recommendation of Mr. Maliki, who had been advised by the Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi to express public support for the Obama withdrawal plan. Asked for a comment yesterday, Mr. Chalabi, an old hand at working the American political process to the advantage of Iraq, conveyed a statement via his Washington representative, Francis Brooke: “This is an honor I will not claim and a rumor I will not deny.”

So who is Ahmad Chalabi? The name probably sounds familiar, but in case you’ve forgotten here’s a reminder:

The role of Mr. Chalabi, whose party failed to gain any seats in the 2005 federal parliamentary elections, should be of interest to close watchers of the Bush administration. While Mr. Chalabi has clashed with both the American embassy and at times with Mr. Maliki, he nonetheless is still regarded among the Shiite political class as knowledgeable of American politics from his days lobbying for the Iraq Liberation Act in Washington. At the time, in the late 1990s, Senator McCain was one of Mr. Chalabi’s biggest supporters.

That’s right. Mr. Chalabi is one of the major reasons we went to war with Iraq. If I’m not mistaken he was one of the ones in Bush’s ears telling him that we would be greeted by the majority of Iraqis as liberators. In other words, he was hell-bent on getting us involved.

Now it appears he’s ready to kick us out in 16 months. He’s certainly not denying this at least.

There are some trying to excuse-make for Nouri al-Maliki:

A scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and one of the architects of the surge, Fred Kagan, said that Mr. Maliki has come under some political pressure to oppose a status of forces agreement from the Iranians, who he said have launched an information operation.

Prime Minister Maliki might want to be a little more concerned with us than with the Iranians. After all, if it weren’t for us his country would still be ruled with the torture chambers and mass graves of Saddam Hussein.

But thankfully I am not the only one frustrated with Maliki. Byron York has written a wonderful piece outlining the problems McCain faces from Maliki’s agreement with Obama on a 16 month timetable.

Iraq’s demand of a quick withdrawal of foreign forces just keeps getting better.

From Fox News:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a German magazine that he supports Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

“U.S. 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,” al-Maliki told Der Spiegel. He said he wants U.S. troops to leave “as soon as possible.”

I rest my case on this whole Iraq issue. I have said all I can say. All I end up doing is repeating myself which doesn’t make for very informative or entertaining reading.

The bottom line is that we have been used by the greedy and thankless Iraqis worse than a cheap prostitute.

I’m going to go on record right now as saying that I don’t believe Iraq is going to turn out to be the great ally we think it is.

By the way, let’s see if the usual Republican talking heads bring this issue up. They’re quick to point out–rightfully so–that Hamas endorses Obama. Now let’s see if they point out that Iraq’s Prime Minister endorses Obama’s timetable.

They probably won’t because this reflects poorly on Bush.

All I can say is that Maliki and Obama deserve each other.

The audacity of Iraqis is on display yet again. Apparently Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is interested in developing a time table for the end of a “foreign presence.”
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For the time in a while there happens to be a good article in The New York Times this morning updating the KBR-Iraq contract abomination.
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