Maliki Forces Weak Bush to Abandon Search For US Soldier in Baghdad

[Dems Will Win]

ABANDONED US SOLDIER AHMED QUSAI AL-TAEI AND WIFE

George W. Bush has been forced to stop the search for a kidnapped US soldier in Baghdad on the orders of al-Maliki.

Maliki's aides actually said the weakness of the GOP in the US elections gave Maliki the opportunity to force Bush into abandoning the checkpoints in Sadr City and thus the search for the kidnapped GI.

First the Sun Times and WaPo on the search, then the AP calling it off:

The military said the soldier was a linguist with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghdad. American troops who raided Baghdad's al-Furat TV on Monday said they were looking for an abducted American officer of Iraqi descent who went to join relatives in Karradah.

''We will leverage all available coalition resources to find this soldier,'' Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman said in a statement. ''Our thoughts and prayers go out to his loved ones, and we are working for his safe return.''

The soldier was reportedly at a relative's house when he was grabbed by masked men who handcuffed him and forced him into a vehicle. One of the men then called a relative with the soldier's cell phone, the military said. It did not say whether a ransom demand was made.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/109863,CST-NWS-iraqmiss25.article

BAGHDAD, Oct. 29 -- American military police backed by Iraqi troops maintained their cordon of Baghdad's Sadr City on Sunday, manning barricades and checkpoints in and around the Shiite slum in an operation to find a kidnapped U.S. soldier and to capture the man considered Iraq's most notorious death squad leader.

The soldier, an Iraqi American translator whose name has not been released, has been missing for six days. He was abducted by armed men while making an unauthorized visit to see relatives in the Karrada neighborhood of central Baghdad last Monday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/29/AR2006102900562.html

The raid came a day after U.S. forces dismantled road blocks around the Mahdi Army's Baghdad stronghold, the Sadr City neighborhood, following an order from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It was the latest in a series of challenges to the U.S. designed to test Washington's readiness to give him a greater say in securing the world's most violent capital.

Aides to the prime minister say he hopes to expand his authority by exploiting the pressure on President Bush over rising voter dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war and the rising U.S. death toll.

U.S. demands for a crackdown on militias have been a sticking point in relations with al-Maliki, whose coalition government is heavily dependent on al-Sadr's political support.

Other members of al-Maliki's brittle ruling coalition criticized the lifting of the Sadr City checkpoints, saying the prime minister should have consulted other government leaders about it first.

"Sieges all over Iraq should be lifted, not just the one on Sadr City," said the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who has threatened to resign if al-Maliki did not move swiftly to eradicate militia groups. "I am against all forms of collective punishment against Iraqis by the foreign forces."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Over the past few days, U.S. operations in Baghdad, Iraq, have been driven by the search for kidnapped U.S. soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taei in and around Sadr City, the stronghold of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. According to his family, al-Taei was kidnapped from his new Iraqi wife's home by Mehdi Army commander Abu Rami. In response, a joint Iraqi-U.S. raid on Sadr City on Oct. 25 was followed by cordon-and-search operations that concluded Oct. 31 after strong public objections by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=279618

Bush just abandoned a US Soldier because of weakness. Whose side is Maliki on anyhow?

What an argument to get the hell out of there!

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