This Hand Doesn't Know What The Other Is Doing

h/t to reader and commenter "vstol" for catching this...

Do any of these people know what the hell they're talking about?

First, we heard this:

A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no "conclusive" evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."

Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.

Then, we heard this:

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh called reporters late Sunday night to clarify remarks he made at a news conference earlier in the day, when he appeared to say that there was no hard evidence that Iran was allowing weapons to come into Iraq. Dabbagh said his comments had been misinterpreted.

"There is an interference and evidence that they have interfered in Iraqi affairs," Dabbagh said in an interview arranged by a U.S. official. When asked how he would characterize the proof that Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, he said: "It is a concrete evidence."

The U.S. government has long accused Iran of providing the powerful roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators to Shiite militiamen who attack American troops. Iran has denied any such role. [these are the copper bowl-shaped devices, which are crude and can be made literally anywhere and not just in Iran]

Dabbagh said that after Maliki launched an offensive last month in the southern city of Basra, weapons were found that were clearly produced in Iran.

"The truth came out; there is evidence of Iranian weapons in Iraq," he said. "Now we need to document who sent them."

Dabbagh said the high-level committee was formed three days ago and includes officials from the Interior and Defense Ministries.

So which is it then? No concrete proof or so much proof as to provoke all-out war between Iraq and Iran? Why does he use the metaphor of "concrete" when everyone knows that cheap concrete poured in Baghdad is likely to be surrounded by backed up sewage pipes, electric outlets that aren't properly grounded, and shattered windows from the latest car bomb?

A hopeful person might wish that the Iraqis are merely inept and not deliberate when they pull things like this. I'm not hopeful when it comes to the Iraqi government--clearly, there is an iron fist that shakes spokesmen and deputies and ministers until they say what someone wants to hear. You cannot accept what is being said anymore. There are no dissident voices. It's like watching a bad cartoon.

How much of that is being driven by the US is anyone's guess.

This is not good news for al-Maliki

The Sunni al-Tawafuq bloc has apparently made good on their threat to withdraw from the government of Nuri Kemal al-Maliki. It was announced on Wednesday that the party would vacate five of the six cabinet seats they hold. They resigned to protest the lack of progress on a list of demands they had issued a week before. "The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand and slamming shut the door to any meaningful reforms necessary to save Iraq," said Rafaa al-Issawi, speaking for the group of lawmakers.

It was hailed as a significant development a year ago when Maliki convinced the group to join his government and revealed his national reconciliation plan. In both Baghdad and Washington, the alliance and the national reconciliation plan were heralded as the sort of development that we needed to encourage. Sunnis were supposed to have a voice in the Shi’ite dominated government, and the Shi’ite majority was supposed to rein in the militias. In reality, political progress has been minimal and sectarian violence has not abated. Car bombs kill scores every day.

"Our aim has always been the continuation of active political participation with everyone taking his proper role in the responsibility of controlling the country and making decisions," Maliki said in a written statement. "We tried our best to continue that way and we'll continue to maintain a connection with all political blocs."

The Sunni front had demanded the release of thousands of detainees it says are unjustly imprisoned, the removal of all militia members from the Shiite-dominated Iraqi police force, and the return of displaced families to their homes. The Sunnis also sought a greater role in security matters and further investigation into mass kidnappings and the bombings of Sunni shrines.

Issawi said that the group's demands will remain on the table and that its 44 parliament members will not withdraw. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and Defense Minister Abdul Qadir Muhammed Jassim, both Accordance Front members, will remain in the government for the time being, he said.

The announcement occurred in the hour between two car bomb attacks that killed at least 70 people in Baghdad, police said. A fuel tanker exploded in the volatile western neighborhood of Mansour, killing at least 50 people and wounding 60 others. A car bomb in Karrada, in central Baghdad, killed at least 20 people and injured 32 others, police said.

The attack in Karrada, in front of a popular ice cream parlor, was the eighth such blast in that neighborhood in the past month. Although the busy shopping district was once considered one of Baghdad's safest areas, it has seen a dramatic increase in violence in the past several weeks.

A third car bomb, in the Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad, killed five people and injured five, police said.

In other Iraq spin, war proponents have made much hay out of the fact that the death toll for July was lower than in the previous three months, but they don’t acknowledge that it is the deadliest July yet, and that the numbers traditionally drop in July and pick back up in August. Embassy spokesman Phillip Reeker is just sure that this year it is due to “the Surge™” though. "The surge[™] has done what we wanted it to do in terms of bringing down the violence," Reeker said. "The hardest part is taking advantage of these security gains to move the political process forward."

Of course, it’s rather hard to make political progress when the parliament is off on holiday and hasn’t had a quorum in quite some time, anyway. As to that decrease in violence, the seventy people killed in car bombings today might disagree with Mr. Reeker’s upbeat assessment.

Michael Ware, CNN Baghdad correspondent, certainly took the opportunity to disagree with the pathologically positive assessment of war fluffers O'Hanlon and Pollack, and the vice president who cited their possibly-drug-induced, hyper-manic assessment as a reason to maintain the elevated troop levels until the Army officially comes apart at the seams - about the time these craven bastards leave office and shift the blame.

And besides all that - by the administrations own metric the surge™ is a failure. Remember, they said when they asked for the troop buildup that the successes would be measured not in military realizations, but in political ones.