Iraq Plan 2015

Having pulled the story off that nifty Reuters news widget over there, there's news today that while pulling out of Iraq in 2011 is still about 3 years too long, the Bushies wanted to stay until 2015.

The United States asked Iraq for permission to maintain a troop presence there to 2015, but U.S. and Iraqi negotiators agreed to limit their authorization to 2011, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said.

"It was a U.S. proposal for the date which is 2015, and an Iraqi one which is 2010, then we agreed to make it 2011. Iraq has the right, if necessary, to extend the presence of these troops," Talabani said in an interview with al-Hurra television, a transcript of which was posted on his party's website on Wednesday.

U.S. officials in Baghdad were not immediately available for comment.

The Bushies were planning to tie Obama's hands for both terms, apparently. I'm sure another 7 years of bombing the crap out of Iraqi citizens would have made them like us more eventually.

If McSame is President, we'll still be in Iraq in January 2013. The situation on the ground will dictate that we still have a "duty to secure Iraq", you can bet that clause will be in there. If Obama's in the White House, they'll hopefully be home in time to vote in 2012.

I'm sure stories like this are only helping our case for staying.

Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sergeant Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D's senior medic and an acting squad leader, made sworn statements in January to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany probing the incident, the newspaper reported on its website.

The men each described killing one of the Iraqi detainees, as directed by First Sergeant John E. Hatley, according to the statements. Hatley shot two other detainees with a pistol in the back of the head, Mayo and Leahy told investigators, according to the NYT.

U.S. soldiers cannot harm enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody, the NYT said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army in Europe declined to comment, saying he could not speculate on any future legal action.

But the neocons wonder why the Iraqis are ungrateful and want us to get the hell out.